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I really like my Ethernet AC Controller. Its probably the most useful thing I’ve built. So when I decided to give PCB manufacturing a try, it was a good candidate for an upgrade. This post covers the (re)design and features of my new Ethernet AC controller. If you haven’t read my other posts, my goal here was to be able to control my air conditioner from my cellphone. (more…)

I’ve taken a break from my Verilog programming to better understand USB. My goal is to create some sort of FPGA data processor running over high-speed USB. The BASYS board includes a Cypress EZ-USB FX2 controller. I think the BASYS also comes with software for communicating with the board, but its windows only and a closed api so I haven’t looked into this at all. I’m trying to replace the Digilent’s firmware for the EZ-USB. This post covers some of what I’ve done so far. (more…)

I finished merging the IR code (and hardware) with the tux graphics project. My air-conditioner now has a REST webserver. Getting hot? Just type “AC” in firefox and the air-conditioner turns on! The next step is finding a secure way to activate the device from my cellphone. The latest code is in SVN. (more…)

It works! I finally had success getting my IR transmitter to work. I update my code so that the signal transmission could be triggered by an external interrupt. Once that was done I could analyze side-by-side waveforms. I manually tweaked my code until it was in sync with the remote control, and success! This post documents the communication protocol for my LG 8008R. The next step is to hook-up some hardware to the internet. (more…)

No luck. I’m trying to prototype an IR transmitter using an AVR micro-controller. My first try was a awful example of wave form generation; a piece of C code without a clock driven output. Instead of using a clock/timer which would have given me interrupts at exact intervals, I decided to do busy-for-loop-spinning delays to shape the signal. The result was a nasty error filled waveform. (more…)

I’ve been downloading TV content from usenet. It tends to be a faster option than torrent, and with NZB it is pretty easy to use. Unfortunately, I have to finish downloading a file before I can watch it. How can I stream the content? (more…)