Category Archives: Hardware

Roomba on the prowl

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I find myself in a completely tiled apartment while also having acquired a Roomba 4210. No more constant dirt and pet hair… Though, if I were the iRobot developers, I would quickly add the following features to the low end Roomba…

  • RF remote, instead of the IR remote.
  • Find the dock without fail (use RF, signal strength, and other associated homing technologies).
  • A camera, why can’t I see what Roomba sees?
  • Remote control via mobile (especially WIFI, see: AR Drone).
  • I know the upper models have schedules, but why not the lower end… how about every day at 3am?
  • I’m sure newer models don’t have as many problems, but come on… the lower end shouldn’t get stuck so often on raised areas, underneath desks and dressers, and refuse to start on black carpets…

Lego Car

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My son often requests family time at the Lego set. A recent evening produced this surprisingly fast wired remote control car. The trick I have found with Technic Legos, is to set the gearing tight while building, and then loosen it up a bit before turning the power on… otherwise the motor gets bogged down by friction. Someday, I think I will have to look into Lego Mindstorms.

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Wireless keyboard

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I am happy to report that I am typing this blog entry from my first wireless keyboard… it was free and it even had two rechargeable AAA batteries inside! The only issue I have with it, is that it is infrared… meaning it has to be pointed directly at the receiver, and also, I can’t read the monitor from this far away. :-)

Woktenna

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Here is a pic of my semi professionally made (that is I spent time in the wood shop) dish setup for my D-Link DWL-122 802.11b 11 Mbps USB Adapter:

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To develop this dish setup, I did the following:

  1. Used ideas from http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/
  2. Mostly the focal point math from http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/usbscoop.jpg
  3. Took a wok lid and removed the wooden handle
  4. Cut a small length of wood (a) (this gets the USB dongle to the calculated focal point)
  5. Cut a small block of wood (b) (this connects the dish to the camera stand)
  6. Drilled the appropriate holes into the the two pieces of wood
  7. Put a long screw into the block of wood (b) that extends through the other side (this joins the length of wood (a), dish, and block together)
  8. Embedded a nut the size of the camera stand’s butterfly bolt into the block of wood (b) and used a hardening putty to keep it there
  9. Put two thumb tacks into the length of wood (a) to hold bands around the usb dongle

The whole setup collapses in seconds, is aimable, portable, and gave me terrific gain… though I don’t have comparison screenshots. This is a great setup for a laptop on the go trying to get the distant wifi access.

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Here, the woktenna is seen by the Cantenna. I had the Cantenna hooked up to a wrt54g running dd-wrt as a wireless bridge to another access point.

See also:

Secure Digital – USB

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Here is a new product announced by Sandisk at the Consumer Electronics Show. It has to be the coolest thing I have ever seen. Basically it is a Secure Digital memory card that folds in half, and plugs into a USB port.

Very cool… and innovative.

Read more at PC Magazine.