2011-01-16 05:42 zrafa: looks like a mobile phone being reverse engineered 2011-01-16 05:42 steve|m: oh nice 2011-01-16 05:42 yes, here's the story... 2011-01-16 05:42 steve|m: how do you scrape those pcb layers? 2011-01-16 05:42 steve|m noticed that I did a number of delayerings, and he wanted to give me some more boards 2011-01-16 05:43 I explained the whole background to him, street jobs for 100 USD, or big reverse corp (ma-tek.com) for 2000 USD, etc. 2011-01-16 05:43 and in the end he decided he can just try it himself! :-) 2011-01-16 05:43 so he took a sandpaper and went through the pcb 2011-01-16 05:43 just manually, that's how the 'street jobs' folks will do it too 2011-01-16 05:43 ah, just sandpaper? 2011-01-16 05:43 cool 2011-01-16 05:43 yes 2011-01-16 05:43 :-) 2011-01-16 05:44 then I asked him to document that a little, also to write a short mail somewhere saying which sandpaper he used, what he learnt... 2011-01-16 05:44 I guess those pictures are the first part of it. 2011-01-16 05:45 lekernel: do you know www.ma-tek.com ? 2011-01-16 05:45 no 2011-01-16 05:45 it's a nice analysis company, maybe 50 people or so, and they have all equipment right there 2011-01-16 05:45 you would like the place :-) 2011-01-16 05:45 they do analysis (mostly ic, of course they can do pcb too) for many customers (see their website) 2011-01-16 05:46 "The Best R&D Partner"... this says a lot about what kind of R&D is carried out in Asia :) 2011-01-16 05:47 .cn = copy nation :) 2011-01-16 05:47 not true 2011-01-16 05:47 this is a good company 2011-01-16 05:47 and it's Taiwan, not China 2011-01-16 05:47 but they have offices in China of course, the Chinese government gives huge subsidies to this type of analysis/reversing company 2011-01-16 05:48 wolfspraul: now they'll arrest your for sedition 2011-01-16 05:48 anyway they do ANALYSIS 2011-01-16 05:48 you think way too narrow if you think that's all just copying 2011-01-16 05:48 oh, I never said they're not a good company... they must be good at their analysis job :) 2011-01-16 05:48 they are used to analyze the failures of particular ics 2011-01-16 05:48 of course they are also used for competitive analysis 2011-01-16 05:48 like "what are the others doing" 2011-01-16 05:49 they are used for quality control 2011-01-16 05:49 they are used for ip litigation, i.e. to proove that another chip has my technology inside 2011-01-16 05:49 anyway they are just analyzing, they are agnostic as to what their customers do with the data they create 2011-01-16 05:49 it's a good company, really 2011-01-16 05:49 if we ever move into ic land, I'm sure we will have some jobs for them. 2011-01-16 05:50 they are small, focused, run by an amazing founder, reasonably priced, etc. 2011-01-16 05:50 really cool people 2011-01-16 05:56 (when going into chips) i wouldn't be surprised if that service came as part of the package from the chip manufacturer 2011-01-16 05:57 agreed on the relevance of the other cases, though 2011-01-16 07:13 wow just sandpaper? 2011-01-16 07:13 s/?/! 2011-01-16 07:27 kristianpaul: yes. it's amazing how often simple technology works :-) 2011-01-16 07:31 2011-01-16 07:35 it is 2011-01-16 08:17 wolfspraul: nice ! :) (about steve job) 2011-01-16 08:44 kyak: you there? building config.full_system I get an error about not finding libgfortran.so.* 2011-01-16 08:44 have you seen something like this before? 2011-01-16 08:46 btw, can the nanonote run Windows CE? 2011-01-16 08:46 no idea 2011-01-16 08:46 he, apparently yes 2011-01-16 08:51 lekernel: yes 2011-01-16 08:52 but i never tried of course :p 2011-01-16 08:52 well, if you have GNU patches to merge upstream, putting windows CE forward could be a nice way to motivate the FSF maintainers imo :) 2011-01-16 08:53 microsoft hatred is the only thing that moves them 2011-01-16 08:53 hehe 2011-01-16 09:36 for now it seems when I remove octave, plplot and libgfortran, things work again 2011-01-16 09:50 wolfspraul: this might have something to do with fortran support, recently added by David - i think he should know better, because i didn't build gfortran 2011-01-16 09:55 yes I am preparing an email to the list, I think that's the easiest way to reach him 2011-01-16 09:55 probably easy to fix... 2011-01-16 09:56 kyak: did the iconv/gettext situation improve? is there anything that bugs you? 2011-01-16 09:57 let me look at our troublemaker tickets :-) 2011-01-16 09:59 the situation hasn't improved, i.e. there is no solution to switch between full and stub iconv/gettext; but it doesn't really bug me, because we have these overriden 2011-01-16 10:00 ok but I think a more general solution will be introduced at some point 2011-01-16 10:01 I keep an eye on it. the tickets are also still there... 2011-01-16 10:01 yes, like mirko said 2011-01-16 10:01 so let's hope it will be introduced in next weeks 2011-01-16 10:03 ok I see mplayer has not yet made it into config.full_system? 2011-01-16 10:04 yes, it's not there.. i'm still wondering if it's realy clean :) 2011-01-16 10:06 why did you disable mencoder? 2011-01-16 10:09 good question.. at first i thought "let's see how mplayer would build, leave mencoder apart" and than i thought "who needs mencoder on Ben?" 2011-01-16 10:15 ah ok 2011-01-16 10:15 that's natural :-) 2011-01-16 10:16 for some reason over the years I ran into many systems/distros that for some unexplicable (to me) reason left out mencoder 2011-01-16 10:16 it's just usually packaged separately :) 2011-01-16 10:17 the case in mandriva 2011-01-16 10:37 Hey, how do I produce a NAND-ready kernel image from a uImage used for MicroSD installations? 2011-01-16 10:38 I wonder if that made any sense. 2011-01-16 10:41 not to me 2011-01-16 10:44 :) 2011-01-16 10:44 I think rafa's helping me, in any case 2011-01-16 10:44 Thanks 2011-01-16 10:54 at least some interesting stuff about the kinect: http://www.futurepicture.org/?p=116 2011-01-16 10:55 better than all the buzz about this stupid open source DRIVER... lol! 2011-01-16 10:57 those micro patterned lenses would also be something fun to play with... 2011-01-16 11:03 kyak: you could need mencoder to scale some video to fit nn screen? 2011-01-16 11:03 kyak: just thinking.. no idea if it would be really useful for people 2011-01-16 11:04 kyak: and maybe it is really hard to build without any codecs (and just ogg and theora) 2011-01-16 11:04 milkynect? :-) 2011-01-16 11:04 lekernel: that's a very nice blog! I'll add it to the Qi planet... 2011-01-16 11:07 wow yes 2011-01-16 11:09 wolfspraul: please add this if you like usrp/gnu radio blog for qi http://www.oz9aec.net/index.php/gnu-radio/gnu-radio-blog 2011-01-16 11:43 DocScrutinizer: first result with the crystal:  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/wpan/redesign-xtal/ 2011-01-16 11:43 HEH \o/ 2011-01-16 11:43 DocScrutinizer: doesn't get much cleaner, does it ? :) the signal seems a bit weak, though. could be a soldering problem. 2011-01-16 11:44 looks *much* better to me, no? 2011-01-16 11:44 yay ! 2011-01-16 11:45 aah, doesn't get... yes, as good as it gets :-) 2011-01-16 11:45 ah, caught the antenna at a bad angle. taking a new spectrum ... 2011-01-16 11:47 well, mission accomplished :-D 2011-01-16 11:47 congrats 2011-01-16 11:47 DocScrutinizer: reload. peak is a nice 40 dB above noise. maybe i can get rid of the thingy at +0.5 MHz, too. 2011-01-16 11:48 (may be leakage from the PLL, though) 2011-01-16 11:48 it's single sideband, that's most likely an artefact 2011-01-16 11:48 it's at the center frequency 2011-01-16 11:49 wpwrak_: what spectrum analyzer do you have? 2011-01-16 11:49 the large peak is at center -0.5 MHz. the constant wave is center +/- 0.5 MHz 2011-01-16 11:49 o.O 2011-01-16 11:49 lekernel: none :) it's a USRP2 2011-01-16 11:49 check your USXRY 2011-01-16 11:50 my what ? :) 2011-01-16 11:50 wpwrak_: what's the highest frequency there's a usrp daughterboard for? 2011-01-16 11:52 lekernel: i think ~5.8 GHz (the board says it goes up to 6.1 GHz) 2011-01-16 11:52 mh, ok. a bit too low for my purposes :( 2011-01-16 12:01 lekernel: if you're looking for spectrum analyzers up to 9.4 GHz, here are some that are quite low-cost in comparison: http://www.spectran.com/ 2011-01-16 12:01 he, not too bad. thanks for the link! 2011-01-16 12:02 usrp would be nicer, as the purpose is to measure the frequency variation induced by a vibrating piezo in a microwave cavity 2011-01-16 12:02 with potential corrections so get the frequency modulation waveform that I want at the end 2011-01-16 12:03 zrafa: heh, you are right, it's doubtful that someone would upload a video to Ben, encode it there and then watch it :) btw, are you aware about other open codecs other than ogg and theora? 2011-01-16 12:03 but perhaps I could get away with just a spectrum analyzer or frequency counter... need to check 2011-01-16 12:05 basically depends on the linearity of the piezo and absence of mechanical resonances... 2011-01-16 12:06 i understood "basically" -] 2011-01-16 12:07 also I'm working around 9.35GHz, so it's near the limit of those devices :( 2011-01-16 12:08 ask ettus 2011-01-16 12:11 lekernel: you could design your own RF frontend. 9.4 GHz ought to be fun :) 2011-01-16 12:11 nope. I just want my radar to work. not to involve in those things 2011-01-16 12:12 so it's going to be with OTS equipment 2011-01-16 12:14 later i'll try to get my hands on a car cruise control system to scavenge the 77GHz radio. _this_ is fun (and would increase the radar resolution a lot) and what I want to spend my time on. not design 9.4GHz frontends 2011-01-16 12:20 77 GHz sounds nice :) 2011-01-16 12:21 http://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/channel.html?channel=db3a30431ddc9372011e213568da414b 2011-01-16 12:21 there I think I'll have to design some equipment from scratch :p 2011-01-16 12:22 the DRO running at 19 GHz provides a highly accurate signal to the PLL circuit 2011-01-16 12:22 hehehe 2011-01-16 12:24 you could chain a few plls. start with a 32.768 kHz watch crystal ;-)) 2011-01-16 12:24 those chips seem to require an interview to order, so i'll probably need to use some reverse engineering as well... 2011-01-16 12:25 oh, i'll use pre-mounted boards from actual car cruise control systems 2011-01-16 12:25 much easier to find than the chips 2011-01-16 12:25 and easier to work with (at this frequency you work with bare dies and micromanipulators) 2011-01-16 12:25 it's going to be a nice challenge :) 2011-01-16 12:26 but I'm exercising with a cheaper and easier 9.35GHz design first 2011-01-16 12:27 i'll just wait for your 2012 version that uses neutrinos :) 2011-01-16 12:31 if you get evil please dont make an ADS :-) 2011-01-16 12:31 (crystal) DROs are pretty stable already. the (super cheap) 9.35GHz one I have on my desk atm has a specified < 5MHz frequency drift 2011-01-16 12:41 kyak: (codecs) no much.. .. BTW, on beta4 jlime on qi servers I added a theora video player. It is the sample examle with libtheora. I added a bit of crappy code to control it a bit.. if you are interested to put it on openwrt I could give you the details. But if you have a clean mplayer (without patented stuff) then you do not need the theora example I have.. mplayer is 1000 times better. 2011-01-16 12:45 lekernel: do you know a good blog about diy radars? 2011-01-16 12:45 blog, no 2011-01-16 12:58 I think futureproject.org is basically just a syndication of danreetz.com and mattikariluoma.com, and dan seems to be the one blogging the most interesting stuff 2011-01-16 12:59 so I'll include danreetz.com in the planet, see how it goes. Also I will email him to notify him of the syndication, in case he doesn't like it... 2011-01-16 13:11 wpwrak: congrats for the signal quality! 2011-01-16 13:11 I understand your idea about reusing the clock was kia, but oh well 2011-01-16 13:12 I think it will also make the board more robust, even if the Ben clock would have been good, other devices may have different clock characteristics. 2011-01-16 13:12 it's just too much to reuse a digital SD clock in an RF application, I guess... 2011-01-16 13:19 zrafa: thanks, will keep it in mind about theora player 2011-01-16 13:19 thanks ! yes, apparently the clock is a bit too sensitive 2011-01-16 14:08 kyak: which feeds.conf are you using now? 2011-01-16 14:09 oh, I just see there is a feeds.conf committed in data/qi_lb60/conf now 2011-01-16 14:10 with qipackages first, but no revision on the openwrt packages feed. alright the, I'll try that one... 2011-01-16 14:54 wolfspraul: yep, that one... 2011-01-16 15:01 kyak: I just got a compile error in fetchmail 6.3.19, oh well 2011-01-16 15:01 md5c.c 2011-01-16 17:39 wolfspraul: for version 2.0, we can do the board with 4 layers and microvias. then i could route all the traces underneath the crystal :) 2011-01-16 18:06 any one can recommend a commad line tool for generating html index of a directory? 2011-01-16 18:11 for i in *; do echo "
  • $i
    • " >> index.html; done :) 2011-01-16 18:13 lol :-) thanks ! 2011-01-16 18:13 hehe 2011-01-16 18:13 i need read man bash more often 2011-01-16 18:15 yeah, it's useful sometimes :) 2011-01-16 18:26 wolfspraul: btw, what kind of text do you want on the board ? 2011-01-16 18:26 hard to say. 2011-01-16 18:27 I think in general the cc-by or cc-by-sa logo is nice 2011-01-16 18:27 pheew ... do you have that for kicad ? :) 2011-01-16 18:27 then I like to credit creators, so don't hesitate to put (c) Werner Almesberger on it :-) (although your name is long :-)) 2011-01-16 18:28 for kicad, not sure 2011-01-16 18:28 we can do it later 2011-01-16 18:28 without logo, you can just put cc-by-sa on it as text 2011-01-16 18:28 i can put "cc-by-sa". in principle, there's a lot of room for text on the silk screen 2011-01-16 18:29 yeah just put the text there then, and it's fine 2011-01-16 18:29 just because i don't have a silk screen at the moment, it all is on the copper layers 2011-01-16 18:30 pick and place likes component outlines on the silk screen, don't they ? 2011-01-16 18:31 don't know 2011-01-16 18:33 what other information to put ? the project name, QI-HW ? [IEEE] 802.15.4 ? or WPAN ? both ? version/date code for sure. i think i'll scrap the "8:10 CARD". it's kinda obvious when you look at it anyway. 2011-01-16 18:44 hmm 2011-01-16 18:44 date code is good, yes 2011-01-16 18:44 cc-by-sa, we had that 2011-01-16 18:44 802.15.4 - sure why not? 2011-01-16 18:45 you can put a url there, for example the short qi-hw.com 2011-01-16 18:47 ah, cool. that's handy, yes. 2011-01-16 18:49 grrr. bloody zone construction algorithm crashes pcbnew every time i try to redo the digital zone. @#*%$! 2011-01-16 18:50 that would be in fact one item that's probably fixed in a more recent version. at least i'd very much hope so :) 2011-01-16 18:52 let's see if my electricity is good again ... 2011-01-16 18:55 wpwrak: btw it turns out the new jtag-serial boards we made only work in full-speed, not high-speed 2011-01-16 18:55 the ones yanjun luo made worked in high-speed too (after a fix) 2011-01-16 18:55 so we took on a few risks too many, something got wrong either in my schematics cleanup, or in boom, or manual sourcing, or production, or ... 2011-01-16 18:56 we'll track it down 2011-01-16 18:56 the good news is that full-speed is good enough right now for everybody to just use them, so it's only an annoying bug, but no drama 2011-01-16 18:58 great that it's not a big issue. production tolerances and other such small things can be evil indeed. 2011-01-16 18:59 we'll also have to figure out a way to production-test the wpan boards. hopefully some BER/PER measurements will enough. (thus not require a spectrum analyzer or usrp) 2011-01-16 19:00 anyway, gotta run for now 2011-01-16 19:02 cya 2011-01-16 20:32 adamw_: when making a low-cost board, do you normally put a silkscreen on both sides of a pcb ? or just the front ? 2011-01-16 20:33 wpwrak, no regarding the cost on silkscreen on both sides. They are quite the same on two layers manufacturing. 2011-01-16 20:34 any preference ? 2011-01-16 20:34 just put them on both side you think they should be at there for more clearly and visualable. 2011-01-16 20:35 no,, but if you want, I can ask them. 2011-01-16 20:36 let's see if i can fit everything on one side ... 2011-01-16 20:36 but from my points. you don't need to take into such considerations since it's a consideration. :-) 2011-01-16 20:36 just shirnk names :-) 2011-01-16 20:36 yeah..if you could. 2011-01-16 20:37 kristianpaul: they're already near the low end of my process :) 2011-01-16 20:37 oh 2011-01-16 20:39 7 mil line width, character cell nominally 40 x 40 mil (whatever kicad does with this .. the letter aren't square) 2011-01-16 20:45 adamw_: what for is the small spring that came in the probe bag? 2011-01-16 20:45 Hi there btw :-) 2011-01-16 20:48 kristianpaul: when you remove the probe's clip-on cap, you see the needle-shaped tip and behind it a wide metal ring 2011-01-16 20:48 kristianpaul: you can slide the spring on the metal ring such that the straight part of the spring is in parallel to the probe tip 2011-01-16 20:49 kristianpaul, hmm...just wpwrak wrote to you. :) 2011-01-16 20:49 ah so is spare part? 2011-01-16 20:49 kristianpaul: then you can touch ground with the spring and the signal with the tip. the advantage over using the crocodile clip for ground is that you have a MUCH smaller loop between signal and ground 2011-01-16 20:49 i need a picture.. 2011-01-16 20:50 kristianpaul: it's not a spare. it's a different mode of operation 2011-01-16 20:50 ah 2011-01-16 20:50 kristianpaul: mode 1: clip probe to the signal, crocodile to ground 2011-01-16 20:50 kristianpaul: mode 2: crocodile to ground, but you remove the cap and touch the signal with the "needle" 2011-01-16 20:50 kristianpaul: mode 3: touch signal with "needle" and touch ground with the spring 2011-01-16 20:51 mode 3 is the most difficult to use but gives you the best signal fidelity 2011-01-16 20:52 kristianpaul: by the way, have you noticed the ethernet port of the scope ? 2011-01-16 20:52 yes yes 2011-01-16 20:52 i got a sofware for that, i just dint tried yet.. 2011-01-16 20:52 i think there's a little web server running in it. so it's quite easy to use. 2011-01-16 20:53 there's more sophisticated software as well, yes 2011-01-16 20:54 if that allow me driver scope from computer will nice, the SCALE pot is tricky 2011-01-16 20:54 it like plays between min and max just touching it :-) 2011-01-16 20:54 s/pot/ajust pot 2011-01-16 20:54 ah yes, i heard that 2011-01-16 20:55 i'll check webserver. let see 2011-01-16 20:55 i'm not sure if it has dhcp. you may have to set the ip address via the scope's setup. (don't remember what it's called) 2011-01-16 20:56 np 2011-01-16 21:06 wpwrak: scope httpd, nice :-) 2011-01-16 21:08 i had to use static ip dunno, why dhcp dint worked.. 2011-01-16 21:10 [commit] Xiangfu Liu: enable the toolchain option for Octave and libgfortran http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-xburst/68914e0 2011-01-16 21:16 roh: tuxbrain once floated the idea of putting a "nose" under large ben extension boards. the nose would go into the lanyard hole and add a bit of mechanical stability. 2011-01-16 21:17 roh: with atusd having grown so much, i'm beginning to consider this idea again ... 2011-01-16 21:19 roh: the lanyard hole has a depth of about 3.3 mm. we need ~1 mm clearance to push-to-insert/release the board. this would leave about 2-2.3 mm for the nose. not a lot, but perhaps better than nothing. 2011-01-16 21:20 roh: the lanyard hole is about 3.4 mm wide. so one could make such a nose by cutting a 1.6 mm PCB and gluing two pieces together. i like easy prototyping :) 2011-01-16 21:21 roh: the atusd pcb would probably need a dent to help with positioning the nose. a hole would be better but may eat too much into the ground plane 2011-01-16 21:25 silk on one side is enough. and i managed to shave 1.4 mm off the board's length :) 2011-01-16 21:33 wpwrak: i see 2011-01-16 22:14 [commit] Werner Almesberger: dirtly made the atrf tools run with the new atusd board http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/ebe6671 2011-01-16 22:14 [commit] Werner Almesberger: atusd.brd: moved SLP_TR via a bit further from the chip http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/bf3189f 2011-01-16 22:14 [commit] Werner Almesberger: atusd.brd: re-layout to slightly reduce size, and added more text http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/62994da 2011-01-16 22:15 hmpf. orthography ... 2011-01-16 22:19 so, if all testing goes well, this will be more or less the final circuit and layout. i may still shave off some of the ground plane left of the antenna and perhaps make that dent for the nose. 2011-01-16 22:19 git pull 2011-01-16 22:20 i realize that i should create a setup that lets me determine the directional characteristics of the antenna. at least close to the receiver, it changes quite a bit even for small movements. 2011-01-16 22:22 40ppm do you measured that? 2011-01-16 22:22 wpwrak: heh. if you send me boards i can make you some acryllic lasercut holder to rotate it without having metal parts or so near it 2011-01-16 22:24 is a small (in components) design even with Xtal, i like :-) 2011-01-16 22:24 he, wonder if i can attach it to my sky atenna .. and see how long it goes :-) 2011-01-16 22:25 [commit] Xiangfu Liu: config.full_system-add-more-php5-modules.patch http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-xburst/15de829 2011-01-16 22:25 [commit] Xiangfu Liu: config.full_system: add package sqlite2-cli http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-xburst/caf02b8 2011-01-16 22:25 wpwrak: is it working the diff tool for schmatics? 2011-01-16 22:26 i want see diffs :-) 2011-01-16 22:29 [commit] Xiangfu Liu: feeds.conf add @revision to feeds.conf http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-xburst/b2cc659 2011-01-16 22:35 kristianpaul: shold work .. lemme check ... 2011-01-16 22:35 kristianpaul: yup. http://projects.qi-hardware.com/schhist/atusd/ 2011-01-16 22:35 kristianpaul: (40 ppm) of course i did. http://projects.qi-hardware.com/schhist/cntr/ 2011-01-16 22:36 k 2011-01-16 22:36 looks nice :-) 2011-01-16 22:36 roh: thanks :) but i think it's a lot faster if i cut a piece of wood ;-) 2011-01-16 22:38 btw how do you cut wood? i mean code.. 2011-01-16 22:40 l8r .. gotta run 2011-01-16 22:40 bye 2011-01-16 22:41 [commit] Xiangfu Liu: add the MAINTAINER to package http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-packages/40912c6