The BeatBearing Build Pt. 2

Okay so I’ve continued on building, and I’ve been working on the wiring and multiplexer setup. Here are a couple of pictures, the first is the multiplexer and the second is the interface cable from the ribbon cables for the “switches” to the d-sub connectors for the multiplexers.

Well off to make my measurements for the acrylic, which I will be cutting and drilling by hand because I don’t have an open mechine shop close by. If your planning to go this route make sure you have the propper tools and go slow or you’ll find your self looking to buy more acrylic.

The beatbearing build

After learning the arduino microcontroller platform, Ive been looking for the prefect project to incorperate it into. With my love of music (enjoying, and creating), and technology, I’ve decided to work on building the beatbearing. (www.beatbearing.co.uk)

I’m living in the Mississauga, Ontario Canada area and have been lucky enough to find all the required parts locally.

All the wire and electronics were purchased from sayal electronics on Mathison ave. Although I had to order the multiplex chips they came in only two days. I had ordered the arduino long ago from the robot shop based out of Montreal. What ever you do do not goto home depot for your acrilic, far to over priced, I was able to find some cheap at a local plastic wearhouse. The ball bearings I have are 11/16 as they are the closest I could find to 20mm, and I bought them from Canadian Bearing on Drew rd. I plan to purchase the washers, nuts & bolts from Bolts Plus on Torbram rd. Although I’m going to have to figure something out for the solder tabs.

Ubuntu 8.10 requiring a little touch to boot

I like many people out there have a problem while loading Ubuntu. I love my computer but I would also like to hit the power button, type my bios password, and come back in a couple of minutes to a login screen. Well I’ve always had a problem doing that with my laptop, it’s a Compaq Presario F700. So after molesting Google for an answer I’ve found it on the Ubuntu forums of all places.

Here is the link:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1037264

All that is needed is to open a terminal window  and use this command as root:

gedit  /boot/grub/menu.lst

and add acpi=noirq to the end of the line for the kernal that you boot ex:

kernel        /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic root=UUID=b075c631-2ecf-434c-8e46-5e6d2d761762 ro quiet splash acpi=noirq

reboot and have fun.

Compaq f700 And Ubuntu

So I’ve finaly decided to stick it out with Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu, And for good reasons too. The shear beauty of KDE alone couldn’t hold me down to the buggy Kubuntu, When I upgraded to the latest kernal, .14 I think, X server decided that there were no screens present and wanted nothing to do with my Nvidia video card. After multiple installs I reverted back to my beloved Ubuntu 8.10.

After the installation was complete I recommend hooking into a hard line and doing the updates and upgrades, as this will allow for the third party drivers to be installed. Once complete and rebooted, under the System>Administration>Hardware Drivers, we can install the video drivers. while your in there, disable the support for atheros 802.11 wireless lan cards.  Concidering the fact that I am running Ubuntu on a Compac, which features the lovely Atheros Ar5007 wifi card, well want to open a terminal and run this command:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

After you get that all installed do a quick reboot and back to Hardware Drivers and enable the new ‘Support for 5xxx series of Atheros wireless lan cards. you may have to reboot again but you’ll get your wifi! enjoy.