Added links to Mike's floor and Dave's Bar Table

Got my laptop back up and working with Visual Studio installed. The 2 of the MSDN ISOs and 1 of the VS ISOs were semi fubared and required a reburn of the CD.

Microsoft ... always busting my balls ... always. Should have a new compiled version of the application within an hour or so running locally.

Kevin Roach's bug of the start button disappearing is confirmed on the release version of .Net 2.0. Working on the solution right now.

UPDATE
Found the issue and fixed it. Not sure if I'll do a release now or later. I still have to add in animated gif support and tweak how to load it. I also need to make the Image "link" not point to a hard coded file.

I also have some pics of how I'm doing some of the longer lengths of wire. I've said it once and I'll say it again ... do not use my wiring solution.

Well, attempting to install Visual Studio is being a bit more of a bitch than I orginally would like. I figure I'll reformat my laptop to purge any remaining .Net beta code.

Hoping to see if I can get a non-beta .Net framework version out before Monday.

From Grant (One of the MIT kids)

Clint,

I was just looking over your photo gallery; everything looks great, as usual. I did notice you seem to be running some power with Molex connectors, though it still looks like you're using the barrel connectors for the final connection to the boards. I just wanted to advise you that we do recommend the barrel connector. Unfortunately (and you may already be aware of this), the Molex connector on the board is actually backwards. You would have to populate the connector on the underside of the board or swap the yellow and red wires if you want to use it. But it looks like you're using the barrel anyway, so it should be perfectly fine.

At the end of the day we always recommend always checking that the power connection is of the correct voltage and polarity before hooking it up, since there's relatively little protection on the board.

Looks great!

- Grant

Actually, the Molex connectors you're seeing are part of the adapter I created. I do use the barreled connectors.

I built 2 and tested both to verify that the voltage is correct before I tested on an actual board.

This connects to the power block.

A functional, yet not fully assembled power block.

on my day off, just finished up the 5.5ers. Need to do the other SIPP and twist on one last remaining that is sipped / cut / stripped.

After I get those done, I have to start measuring / cutting. If memory serves, I have to do the 7, 8.5, 9.5'ers.

Watching the Batman Begin extra DVD comes in handy.

I managed to secure a copy of it today. Going to be a day or so before I can load it on my laptop though.

Created a photo album now

http://www.betterthaneveryone.com/gallery/

Nothing new but since this makes adding images a tad easier, I'll update it way more often

Anyone know a hookup for hardwood? Looking for 2, 4 and 6 feet lengths, 1/2 inch thick. Lots 4 and 6 feet length segments needed

going to add in an image gallery since most of the images I post get lost after a few days.

Just a friendly reminder, everyone is more than welcome to comment.

I was pseudo mentioned on hack-a-day! hack-a-day link

freakin sweet. My life is now complete, I no longer have to build the floor. I kid I kid. I just need to actually you know, do work on it instead of have fun with my friends.

I got my mom an iRobot Roomba Discovery for Christmas. Let me just say, this sucker dominates. I was a bit iffy getting it but figured, my mom can just press the clean button while walking out the door to work (or use the remote to press clean) and it does all the cleaning while she is at work. Genius. So after vaccuming and cleaning for the past couple days to help clean up my parents place, Christmas comes and I give her the clean, new robotic slave. And DAMN, I've just sett it to Max clean and walk away while I help prepped Dinner and what not (aka played with my new toys), but I come back all of 15ish minutes later and the entire debris tray is full. I've gone over the same room a couple times and BAM, full. This sucker sucks in the good way.

I'm totally buying myself one. I do have one beef with the unit's "I'm in trouble" system. I think it gives up too early. The few times it got suck, it did it to itself AND if it moved itself forward, it would have gotten itself out of trouble. Other than that, it rules.

I wouldn't mind a scooba but think in the short term, a roomba is better since my apartment has carpet in the rooms.

I really do love robots.

After 2 days off, I started to fiend for some coding so I picked up my laptop and started to tap mc tap away on the keyboard. Currently Images load. I think I may do an invert function on the reader function since how it views images. To quote my kindergarten teacher, it reads the images hotdog instead of hamburger. however, doing images, I'd imagine most would rather have more width than height.

I already fixed the issue that Joshua mentioned. I haven't seen the issue that Kevin mentioned but I'm just got into coding. Give me a few more beers and I'll be set.

Merry Christmas all ... you pagans (yes, Christmas's roots is Pagan based.) Look it up if you don't believe me. So next time someone wants to ban Halloween, ask them if they celebrate Christmas. Mmmm, presents, something tells me I got a nice Dewalt power tool set.

The cube idea ... was a good idea in theory but a stupid idea in practice. To fit them all together is damn near impossible. The steel idea from the previous post is still an idea. As I stated, I'm not sure on the costs fro that. Next wood based plan is already in the works.

I'm thinking of a modular 4 foot segments that jigsaw together. There will be corner brackets to secure everything with nuts and bolts. Doubt I'll have to do every joint, just every couple to get a secure everything. Why nuts and bolts? If I use screws, I damage the wood every time I have to put together or take apart the floor. With this structure, I can keep everything nice and secure yet mobile.

I just find this solution will be easier to keep up quality. And I get to kill a bunch more trees. High five for destroying the environment yet again on this project (I think I have only 1 thing that is RoHS comliant on the project)

And now for my Home Depot story of the month.

me: "Hi, I'm looking for a corner clamp."
HD worker: "What is a corner clamp"
me: "It is a clamp that does corners. Allows me to make them flush. See, they call it a corner clamp cause it does corners. Really confusing to figure out its intended purpose."
HD worker: "I don't think they make those"
me: "I own four, I just broke two of them. They exist. Picture frames won't exist without them."
HD worker: "Ummmm, I don't know, lemme ask someone"
* repeat this conversation for each of the three workers they find to help me each time I've asked for anything at home depot. Happened asking for a Dado blade. A wire stripper. The list goes on and on. Maybe I just ask too sarcastically.

After realizing the potiential quality assurance issue that is quickly rising ... I'm thinking more and more about going all out steel. It is thinner and will provide a far better look due to this. Cost is far more but I think it may be worth it.

After playing around with 4 sheets of paper, 8 staples, and 6 small peices of tape to make a mock prototype, it was damn strong. way stronger than I would have imagined. They will be far more expensive but I can get them prefabbed so time spent goes way done.

I still need to get costs estimates on this however. I also just did some calculations and I think I can actually fit in 8 modules instead of the 7 by going steel since it is so thin.

I look at my progress from last night and today and I've realized that I doubt I'll be able to get all the cubes done.

SO ... new plan of action.

1.) Make sure I cut all the wood first and am positive I have more than enough.
2.) Figure out now how to do the end caps
3.) Pull off festivious without my dad knowing what I'm plotting.
4.) Build as much as I possibly can.
5.5) buy a pneumatic stapler.
5.) Return with all the parts needed.

Time to do some phatty coding again since I have to ride the Metra to my parent's house for Christmas. I plan on getting some sweet Jpeg loading action and possibly animated gif action too worked in. If i'm lucky, maybe scrolling text.

I have to say, after seeing some screenies for Washington U, I may do some tweaks. I like how their virtual floor launched into a new window. I also like their playlist UI to a certain degree.

Plus I'm going to attempt to score a copy of full version of VS 2k5 today ... finally.

And yes, it appears as if the only time I do coding for this project is while on the Train. So hope I get everything done cause I really doubt I'll be riding any time soon after tonight.

Monday: go out drinking with coworkers and get nothing done. - check

Tonight: Finish up the last of the 1 sided SIPPs. Calculate exactly how many cubes I need and wood to buy.

Tuesday: Get hair cut / drink beerz.

Wednesday: Go to parent's house, buy remaining wood needed, start cutting.

Thursday: Help clean up their house, start glueing / nailing

Friday: Repeat Thursday's plan of attack

Saturday: Repeat. Start sanding down the boxes to fix better. Buy presents for family at 7pm. Use the bags they came in as wrapping paper.

Sunday: Attack presents and slowly help my parents coupe with their new robotic maid (I'm betting neither read this blog). Finish up last of building.

Monday: Go back to Chicago with hopefully with all the parts needed for my dance floor. Bring router back and figure out how much of a gap is needed for 8 wires to squeeze through. Plus gives me an excuse to use power tools in my apartment.

Tuesday: Order Polycarbonate.

I feel like crap after accidently inhailing a tad too many solder fumes.

Note to everyone, proper ventilation is required.

update
It may just be I'm slightly sick and it just happened to hit me when I was soldering.

Either way, GI Joe said to have proper ventilation so I'll stick with that while soldering.

David in the cheese head state is building it in bar form.

http://thediscobar.blogspot.com/

Those LEDs looks very much like the ones I ordered. And as he has the wiring solution on the board I wish I had taken.

What it looks like is he is running some version of Linux with the client / server on the same machine paired with the Washington U software.

#1
As reported by Joshua Stark

Since my inability to do simple math, I'm off by a factor of ten with the random animation time switch. 50 seconds is actually switches every 5 seconds and so on.

#2
As reported by Kevin Roach
The start button disappears after loading the configuration file.

Not totally sure why. The application right now is compiled in Beta 2 of the framework. Kevin is on the final release. Could be an issue there between the two framework versions.

#1 needs to be fixed. #2 may fix itself if I compile it in Visual Studio 2005 final release.

I'm offically half way done with the wiring. I have a lead on the Polycarbonate and I think I suckered my brother into buying me the wood before I hit up my parent's house for Christmas so I can just get to work ASAP instead of having to beg for a vehical.

I figure I'll have the wiring two (maybe it was three) bundles of wires that are partially SIPPed done this weekend with an attempt to start to knock out the heavy hitting 9.5 and 8.5 feet lengths too.

I really do believe after doing it mostly by myself, having 2 people cut / strip, 1 person solder, and 1 person twisting, that it will produce a decently nice assembly line. I figure the twisting person may have to strip from time to time. Let his queue of wires go up then twist and repeat.

With that, I'm off to do some bowling with my company, DocExchange.

2 of the MIT animation files that I ran across while testing failed validation while the rest passed.

these are firstimage.ddf and rings3.ddf

Also yet another set of wires double sipped and twisted.

no it isn't the Guinness I've drank ... which was damn tasty by the way.

Ok, aight aight, check it. I'm think a webcam with some AJAX with some web services are much needed for my dance floor. Give my public a chance to play with my floor and have a really neat web app. Gotta say, being a software developer does have it's perks. I can just create this stuff if it doesn't already exist.

Yes, I've said it once, I'll say it again, this is going to be LEGENDARY.

I just did the other side of I believe the 3.5' wire lengths and realized how long it actually takes. By myself (my helper monkey, Adam Wolverton, helped speed this process up twice), to SIPP the wires, solder, then twist, took a good 2 to 3 hours. I'm making this time based on I remember bitching because there was nothing on TV at 9 then finding southpark, and finished up before Frasier came on at 11:30. I figure I goofed off a bit so I'm not counting the entire time but still ... damn.

On the upside, I finished up twisting another one. Really not looking forward to the other roll I still need to do. While I need to cut / solder less, the lengths are massive. Really need to figure out an automated wire cutting system that doesn't involve using my friends as indentured servants.

If you'd like to be an indentured servant of Clint Rutkas, I do pay in beer and pizza for a hard day's work of soldering, wire cutting, wire stripping, wire twisting, and let us not forget putting wire into SIPP sockets.

from "What to cover, what to cover" I just realized that my 48x48" AR Polycarbonate pricing is wrong. It is the pricing for 24x48.

poop

I finally found time to get to the post office before it closed (pays to be forced to update your entire dev tree branch). Tom's resistor quad packs have finally been shipped.

Globalization/Paypal at work.

To get my application to work, you will need Microsoft .Net 2.0. There is no getting around this unless you want to replace the comport object read / write code. And I'm calling "Not it" for that change.

downloaded link
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en

Required System requirements for .Net 2.0
----------------------------------------------------------------
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 3; Windows 98; Windows 98 Second Edition; Windows ME; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP Service Pack 2

Required Software:
o Windows Installer 3.0 (except for Windows 98/ME, which require Windows Installer 2.0 or later). Windows Installer 3.1 or later is recommended.
o IE 5.01 or later: You must also be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later for all installations of the .NET Framework.

Disk Space Requirements: 280 MB (x86), 610 MB (x64)

Someone emailed me and said that they couldn't unzip the Application file. Hopefully fixed that.

My bad. I could unzip it from work with WinRar but never know.

Also I included the proper XML file configuration file in this build.

5 sets are fully braided and double sipped. I still have yet to even touch the 2nd roll of wire.

Everyone else ... do not use my system for wiring. Really should have used different colored wiring for RGB and Power too for easy of diagnostic.

ahh well.

mmmm, new version and new simpsons episode all in one day.

Ok, few bug fixes, namely the render issue on the mock floor. These too

Also added in a random for animation files. AND ... you now can disable writing to the floor and use the mock floor only. There is a Configuration option that handles that in the config.xml file. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what that option is actually called but I think the 2 config sample files show how to enable it.

If you check out the source, you'll notice I am adding in image support which will also have a random switch function along with direct support for animated gifs. Animated Gif support will come after everything else though. In my opinion, with direct Animation Gif support, I'm not sure if I'd create a MIT Animation Image Converter Creator. It would be semi trivial I suppose to actually create it once I had real-time animation support but just seems pointless.

Application <--58kb
Source Code <-- 85kb

Also, i have yet to get my hands on a copy of the final build of Visual Studio 2005 so the application is still compiled in the Beta 2 version of it. This also means I only tested under the .Net 2.0 Beta 2 framework. Should work under the new version.

XML config file.

<ddf>
<configuration>
<AnimationDirectory>C:\Documents and Settings\Clint\Desktop\disco\disco-0.1\disco-anim</AnimationDirectory>
<DisableComPortWrite>true</DisableComPortWrite>
<BaudRate>57600</BaudRate>
<TilesPerRow>16</TilesPerRow>
<RowsPerModule>4</RowsPerModule>
<ComPorts>
<ComPort>COM4</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM5</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM6</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM7</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM8</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM9</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM10</ComPort>
<ComPort>COM11</ComPort>
</ComPorts>
</configuration>
</ddf>

just braided 2 wire sets

I've gotten pretty much nothing done in the past few days. Either I've been out or been distracted with other things.

Not going to lie, after soldering 100+ joints, you start to feel a bit light headed.

Can I create a company called "Bob Dole Enterprises"? I created this for work since they allow rebranding to a degree and I needed a custom image.

cause if I can, I'd be the coolest. And yes, my xbox live tag name is "Bob Dole". Who wants some of Bob Dole's peanut butter?

They are in. Now how the hell do I ship something to Germany?

And I got my shrink wrap tubing. * does the carlton dance *

I have 384 LEDs with the heat shrink applied. I have only done 32 actually soldered on. I've been lazy. You can blame jello shots.

I'm getting bogged down with holiday cheer so I'm no where near the progress where I want to be. I've gotten 256 LEDs with the heat shrink tube applied. They still need to be SIPPed.

I found I could use a Dutch Oven pan with a layer of aluminum foil underneight to shrink the tube. I demand multitasking points.

I just ordered the Res Packs for Tom in Germany. The sad thing is I guess it is cheaper for me to do this and ship them to him than it is for him to directly order them. Globalization has failed!

I also got myself 100 feet worth of 3/64" heat shrink tubing. (RNF364K-100-ND) for my LEDs. I know I'll run out with what I have right now. Plus there is no handling charge if my order is above 25 dollars. Win Win.