Tick, tick, tick…
Apr 11, 2014 Computers, Electronic Projects, Home Projects, Linux, MythTV, Programming, Rain Barrel
My, how time flies.
I need to catch up on a bunch of stuff soon.
- First, I have started building custom K-Cup holders called the Kupousel. Please check them out.
- I have spent a lot of time with my “new” CNC’ed X2 Mini-Mill. Lots of mods and stuff I hope to post about.
- Sill making Tonal Insanity effects pedals. The mill is helping with them. Started using surface mounted components.
- Got my hands on some Arduino knock-offs and been using them to develop other AVR stuff.
- Built an SMD reflow oven from a toaster oven and a ATmega for a PID control.
- Built (cobbled together) a new spindle for my old router when the Roto-Zip started to give out. It also has less run out so I can route PC board directly now, even SMD stuff.
- Completely re-written my Board Tools program with even more options, partly to take advantage of the new spindle and mill.
- Will be re-re-re-building the rain barrel yet again this year. Last year I tested a control using a pico-power ATtiny13a AVR. Worked well, needs a bit of fine tuning. Main reason for rebuild is the barrel cracked, I moved the garden, and I dropped the solar panel at the end of last year and broke it.
- Building my daughter a loft bed – out of an old desk.
- Rebuilt my MythTV system and got in a fight with the stupid cable box that uses XMP IR protocol. (on going)
- Oh! It has been so long I never mentioned my new main computer: 8-core! AMD “Bulldozer” FX-8120, liquid cooled, msi 970A-G46, 16GB RAM, 1TB HD, Bu-ray burner, 23″ wide screen monitor, running Fedora 19 (20 soon). It F…’IN SCREAMS! Built Android (for A10) complete from source in a few hours! That was why I got it thrown in on a job to modify a Mele A2000 STB into a network/web based, Scent Palette controller. Builds MythTV in about 10 minutes.
Hopefully I will add more info in less than the next 2 years! 
Fun with LIRC
Apr 4, 2011 Computers, Linux, MythTV
I have successfully updated my bedroom MythTV frontend part way.
I did an upgrade using YUM and now running Fedora 14. I did not update MythTV yet since the server is running v.23 and have to update it first. All went well except having to fiddle with updating the NVIDIA driver by hand.
While I was tinkering, I set up LIRC to control the TV and Cable box as well as MythTV. The TV did not have a remote with it and it turns out Olivia’s codes are a bit weird. The remote that came with the Comcast STB worked, but not well. The universal remote I was using with Myth had the same issues but did not work with the STB. I wanted to have only one remote control everything, so what I did was set the universal remote to a code that nothing was using (RCA I think) and had LIRC send commands to the TV and STB using irexec and some irsend scripts. I use a home brew transmitter and old Packard Bell receiver.. I was having a lot of issues with errors that seemed to be coming from problems with the serial port. I ended up switching to the earlier mentioned test machine and that seemed to clear most of it up.
Now what I have is:
Remote
V
LIRC
V V V
MythTv – STB – TV
Ex. when I send Volume Up, LIRC receives it then sends the proper codes out to the TV.
A bit of a hassle, and a slight delay in each action, but the function is so much better with only one remote!
By the way, I was able to pull the hard drive and simply switch machines, even though one was Intel and one AMD. Ever try and do this with WinXP??????? (big pain!!)
Number of View :24551MythTV Menus Disapeared!
Aug 19, 2009 Computers, Linux, MythTV
I have been in the process of setting up a new MythTV frone end and having lots of little issues. I go through this every time, all the little tweaks I need to work with my hardware drive me nuts! I am going to be adding important things here as they come up.
I just rebooted the system and all the menus were gone! Just a blank background. I navigated by “feel” to the settings and the screen came up. I tried changing from OpenGL to QT, changed theme, no good. Started googling, nothing looked familiar. I finally realized I had unplugged the monitor the night before. Opened nvidia-settings, rescanned monitors, saved and that fixed it.
Now a bit more explanation. I have an nvidia 8400gs card connected to a 61″ RCA DLP using DVI. First time I have used this card and this type of set up. I had a small LCD monitor hoked up as well while installing since the RCA cuts off the menus, and switched when finished. I disabled the LCD and every thing was OK. Last night I unplugged the LCD from the AC since I was done with it. Today I powered down to look at mounting a new hard drive and when I powered back up, no menus on Myth. I looked in nvidia-settings and the monitor was still listed. Rescanned and still there, Completely disconnected and rescanned, GONE! Saved xorg.conf, rebooted, changed all settings back, and now it is ok.
Apparently nvidia was trying to be too smart for it’s own good. I had hoped to leave the LCD enabled for future use, but I guess I will just have to reset things if I do.
Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! (To keep from pulling what hair I have left!)
Tags: mythtv
