Maan I've missed posting a bunch of things for my future self.
Here are a couple.
When using geda's pcb layout, if you set the pad clearance on parts to zero, you can do honest copper pours for ultra-high-power or heat-dissipation situations. Tricky because the copper won't separate from unintended pads, so you need to know what you're doing when you pour the copper. Best done by running all the traces, then running the copper over them, then deleting them, so you know you're not inadvertently shorting.
Gnome3 has very irritating sliders on all the windows. A suggestion for disabling these:
# echo export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars
Friday, November 11, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
I've installed Ubuntu 10-04LTS on a new machine to get used to it, since it's what the newest EMC2 CNC controller is based upon. Under system>preferences>appearance you can change the theme so you have the window controls in the upper-right-hand corner rather than the upper-left-hand, as it comes stock.
My stock installation didn't have f-spot working correctly: when it started it died invisibly and when I kicked it off from the command line I got a big pile of errors:
Unhandled Exception: Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteSyntaxException: no such table: tags
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.GetNextStatement (IntPtr pzStart, System.IntPtr& pzTail, System.IntPtr& pStmt) [0x00000]
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.ExecuteReader (CommandBehavior behavior, Boolean want_results, System.Int32& rows_affected) [0x00000]
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery () [0x00000]
at Banshee.Database.QueuedSqliteCommand.Execute () [0x00000]
I went to /home/john/.config/f-spot and removed photo-db and then f-spot worked as it was supposed to.
I hope it is glaringly obvious that this is only an acceptable repair for a brand-new installation and you Do. Not. Want. To. Do. This. if you already have photos in an existing installation.
gschem and pcb work beautifully. The MSP430 jtag programmer and debugger work beautifully. Dual-screen worked well out of the box, running what I believe to be stock xorg graphics drivers. (It's running on an nvidia card, and generally those play well.) Digikam is broken: it correctly detects a camera but claims it can't establish a connection. Unfortunately, showFoto and digikam are strongly interlinked so I get to keep a broken digikam if I want showFoto, and showFoto is a much quicker way to crop/edit pictures than gimp. Imagemagick is amazing, I grant you, but if I'm in a hurry and only have to do one photo, showFoto is a quick way to process it.
Inkscape works beautifully, including the G-code plugin, allowing me to convert any artwork Inkscape can use directly into stuff that loads onto a milling machine. Pure unmitigated awesome.
I'm still not convinced that sudo is a great idea. I think it gets in the way a lot more than a standard unix user/root division. But the experience is growing on me.
The automatic-update-of-kernels is neato. The resulting deluge of entries in grub is *not* neato.
My stock installation didn't have f-spot working correctly: when it started it died invisibly and when I kicked it off from the command line I got a big pile of errors:
Unhandled Exception: Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteSyntaxException: no such table: tags
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.GetNextStatement (IntPtr pzStart, System.IntPtr& pzTail, System.IntPtr& pStmt) [0x00000]
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.ExecuteReader (CommandBehavior behavior, Boolean want_results, System.Int32& rows_affected) [0x00000]
at Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery () [0x00000]
at Banshee.Database.QueuedSqliteCommand.Execute () [0x00000]
I went to /home/john/.config/f-spot and removed photo-db and then f-spot worked as it was supposed to.
I hope it is glaringly obvious that this is only an acceptable repair for a brand-new installation and you Do. Not. Want. To. Do. This. if you already have photos in an existing installation.
gschem and pcb work beautifully. The MSP430 jtag programmer and debugger work beautifully. Dual-screen worked well out of the box, running what I believe to be stock xorg graphics drivers. (It's running on an nvidia card, and generally those play well.) Digikam is broken: it correctly detects a camera but claims it can't establish a connection. Unfortunately, showFoto and digikam are strongly interlinked so I get to keep a broken digikam if I want showFoto, and showFoto is a much quicker way to crop/edit pictures than gimp. Imagemagick is amazing, I grant you, but if I'm in a hurry and only have to do one photo, showFoto is a quick way to process it.
Inkscape works beautifully, including the G-code plugin, allowing me to convert any artwork Inkscape can use directly into stuff that loads onto a milling machine. Pure unmitigated awesome.
I'm still not convinced that sudo is a great idea. I think it gets in the way a lot more than a standard unix user/root division. But the experience is growing on me.
The automatic-update-of-kernels is neato. The resulting deluge of entries in grub is *not* neato.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
MORE about gEDA:
Put new parts in /usr/share/gEDA/sym/local. That way they're available globally without having to put an entry in a gafrc or the like. If you need parts just for one project, then a /symbols in the project directory, with parts in that, and a gafrc local to that project, makes sense.
Don't give a component a refdes of power, or pwr, or ground, or gnd. It messes with the netlister. The component will come through but it won't be included in the netlist so it'll show up with no rats.
The pcb netlist is straight ascii so if you need to fix something broken by the above -- if you really truly require a connector named power -- you can just stitch it in to the netlist by editing it.
The netlister includes a surprisingly comprehensive drc checker called drc2: it'll flag some surprisingly obscure problems.
Put new parts in /usr/share/gEDA/sym/local. That way they're available globally without having to put an entry in a gafrc or the like. If you need parts just for one project, then a /symbols in the project directory, with parts in that, and a gafrc local to that project, makes sense.
Don't give a component a refdes of power, or pwr, or ground, or gnd. It messes with the netlister. The component will come through but it won't be included in the netlist so it'll show up with no rats.
The pcb netlist is straight ascii so if you need to fix something broken by the above -- if you really truly require a connector named power -- you can just stitch it in to the netlist by editing it.
The netlister includes a surprisingly comprehensive drc checker called drc2: it'll flag some surprisingly obscure problems.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
dovetails, for next time
I cut the tails first and the pins second, unlike (apparently) everyone else, because I think it's a lot easier to mark the tails on the pin ends than the other way around.
1. Mark the thickness of each board on the other so I know how deep to cut the tails and pins.
a. The end of the board might not be square: don't trust the saw. They lie. Mark a perpendicular using a good square on the edge of the board, using the thickness of the other board as a gauge.
b. And add a little -- way less than a millimeter but more than the thickness of paper. Scribe. (This is so tails and pins stick out a little on the finished joint, because it's easier to remove wood than to add it.)
2. Mark the dovetails. They can be very skinny.
3. Cut the dovetails with a very low-kerf backsaw.
4. Slit several times into the dovetail waste so it comes out more easily.
5. Cut out the waste with a jeweler's saw because it's way faster and less irritating than using a chisel. Clean up the cross-grain wit a chisel, though. Rocking, slicing moves do better than straight hammer moves. Make sure the chisel has adequate side relief so you can get it down in the dovetail bottoms.
6. Put the dovetail board down on a flat surface, butt the pin board against it, butt them both against a true edge on what will be the bottom of the drawer. Mark the pins.
7. Cut the pins a sawblade-width wide of the mark.
8. True up the pins to fit the dovetails.
9. Remember when you dado for the bottom of the drawer, don't run it all the way through the siderails because then you'll have a tiny square hole in the front of the drawer, one on each side.
1. Mark the thickness of each board on the other so I know how deep to cut the tails and pins.
a. The end of the board might not be square: don't trust the saw. They lie. Mark a perpendicular using a good square on the edge of the board, using the thickness of the other board as a gauge.
b. And add a little -- way less than a millimeter but more than the thickness of paper. Scribe. (This is so tails and pins stick out a little on the finished joint, because it's easier to remove wood than to add it.)
2. Mark the dovetails. They can be very skinny.
3. Cut the dovetails with a very low-kerf backsaw.
4. Slit several times into the dovetail waste so it comes out more easily.
5. Cut out the waste with a jeweler's saw because it's way faster and less irritating than using a chisel. Clean up the cross-grain wit a chisel, though. Rocking, slicing moves do better than straight hammer moves. Make sure the chisel has adequate side relief so you can get it down in the dovetail bottoms.
6. Put the dovetail board down on a flat surface, butt the pin board against it, butt them both against a true edge on what will be the bottom of the drawer. Mark the pins.
7. Cut the pins a sawblade-width wide of the mark.
8. True up the pins to fit the dovetails.
9. Remember when you dado for the bottom of the drawer, don't run it all the way through the siderails because then you'll have a tiny square hole in the front of the drawer, one on each side.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
gEDA, getting started
Work from this page:
http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:gsch2pcb_tutorial
Add a gnetlistrc and a gschemrc to /.gEDA
Change the gschemrc path from the tutorial to:
(load (build-path geda-rc-path "gschem-lightbg")) ;light background
To get pcb to run correctly in Mepis, it's necessary to apt-get install dbus-x11 (or in my case to use synaptic and mark dbus-x11 for installation) because the standard dbus doesn't handle windowing operations, apparently. If this isn't done, pcb will open without any parts being placed.
http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:gsch2pcb_tutorial
Add a gnetlistrc and a gschemrc to /.gEDA
Change the gschemrc path from the tutorial to:
(load (build-path geda-rc-path "gschem-lightbg")) ;light background
To get pcb to run correctly in Mepis, it's necessary to apt-get install dbus-x11 (or in my case to use synaptic and mark dbus-x11 for installation) because the standard dbus doesn't handle windowing operations, apparently. If this isn't done, pcb will open without any parts being placed.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Things I wish I'd known previously about tiles
1. It's a pain to get the thin-set on the walls without holes and vacations, because the thin-set gerbles up under the notched trowel and pulls off the wall.
This can be minimized by keeping lots of cement in the area the trowel is about to run over.
A: put lots of thin-set on the trowel itself, up against the notches
B: pull the trowel at less than 45 degrees so it tends to force the cement through the notches
C: advance into a low spot, smoosh the trowel almost to the wall to adhere the cement on the trowel to the wall, lift back to the 45 degree angle, advance the trowel. Makes for a rocky-looking track but at least it's a full fill.
2. I'm trying, AGAIN, to use caulk as well as cement: caulk between the tiles as sealer, since there's no room for grout. It works better to cut the caulk gun tip with a notch, so it runs along the edge of the tile without slipping off either direction.
This can be minimized by keeping lots of cement in the area the trowel is about to run over.
A: put lots of thin-set on the trowel itself, up against the notches
B: pull the trowel at less than 45 degrees so it tends to force the cement through the notches
C: advance into a low spot, smoosh the trowel almost to the wall to adhere the cement on the trowel to the wall, lift back to the 45 degree angle, advance the trowel. Makes for a rocky-looking track but at least it's a full fill.
2. I'm trying, AGAIN, to use caulk as well as cement: caulk between the tiles as sealer, since there's no room for grout. It works better to cut the caulk gun tip with a notch, so it runs along the edge of the tile without slipping off either direction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)