Switcher news...

I revised my switcher plan. It took a few weeks of planning and re-planning, and I think I have a new course of action: First, using a different switch chip. I originally used the CBT3244, which was probably why the project came to a crashing halt. The new chip is the related CBT3245. Which moves onto the second part. The chip, instead of the '44's wacky 4+4 arrangement with two control lines, the '45 is a true 8 channel chip with a single control line. I just need to get adapter board for the chips. I can mount the adapter boards with mounted chips on a right angle to the board carrying the chips. Third, the enclosure, I scavenged a metal enclosure out of the recycling bin out back of my apartment. It has lots of space in it to play around and reconfigure and other pre-assembly stuff. The problem with the enclosure is that I really don't feel like using my Dremel to make 65 DE-9 connector shaped holes in it. The solution: take it to a hackerspace  in Philadelphia, PA that has access to a laser cutter to make the connector holes. I can use a hand drill to make the holes for the 64 switches. In case you folks were wondering, yes, this thing will have 64 inputs! And, finally, I just need to find some tinned wire to make the audio/video line rails. Stay tuned for updates, as this thing will be a doozy!

Brilliant!

At work yesterday and at home today I saw some thing crazy yet awesome. Smart tube. Where the fuck was this 20 years ago?! Seriously, how many years did it take for the human race to engineer that simple concept of an integrated tube in a spray bottle?! It's as if some design person just woke up.

Yes, I am crazy!

I'm about to attempt something crazy. I am going to mod a modern PC. The modification: adding optical and co-ax audio connectors to my M4A88TD-V EVO USB3 motherboard. The easy part was assembling all of the parts to go into this thing. The sorta easy part is modifying a bracket to take 2 RCA connectors and 1 TosLink connector. The ridiculously hard part is soldering a single wire to a pin on my audio CODEC. This might be the single most craziest thing I have done. I'll post results after I am done.

See ya!

My monitor finally took a crap. It was inevitable as the thing got some serious hours on it since I got it. The monitor was an I-INC iF281D manufactured on the first week of 2009 and has seen heavy use since then. Now, the hunt is on for a replacement.

Success!

I have found a way to decapsulate integrated circuits, chip-on-board ICs can be decapped. I borrowed ~15 mL of paint stripper from work and left a COB package out of a dollar store universal remote to soak in the solution and worked admirably. I suspect it's due to dichloromethane, as the other solvents in the solution have negligible effect. The die size is freaking tiny, 1mm by 2mm. I could not take a picture of what the die looks like, sorry! Now, I just need to find a source of DCM, and I should be able to decap all of my ICs and clean out that part drawer.

About time...

I finally got XMPlay to encode MP3s. It took about 2 years to get encoding to work. The reason I'm encoding my massive collection of modules is so I can play them on my PlayStation 3 when I get it. Now let the process commence!

This was interesting!

I was playing around with my keyboard this was the result.