More modern instruments have USB instead of RS232. To my great annoyance, I have to admit, as connecting a RS232 device to eg. a microcontroller-based datalogger is much easier than when you have to mess with USB.
For more instruments you can deal via USB, USB-to-serial converters, or eg. a pair of Netmos serial port cards, which will add 8 more RS232 ports to your machine. GPIB is IMHO an overpriced monstrosity.
Use a multimeter with built-in RS232 interface. Either use two, or use one which can act as a wattmeter (eg. Metex 3860M) which can be obtained for $170 at tequipment.net and perhaps cheaper elsewhere.
Alternatively, slap an USB or RS232 or RS485 interface to a cheap microcontroller with built-in ADC (usually 10-bit, usually multiplexed to several possible input pins) and suitable analog circuits for sensing the values required, and log to a computer or to a data storage (eg. smartcard).
Yet another alternative, using your approach, is taking the image, finding out the approximate positions of the centers of the LCD segments, finding the image brightness thresholds for segment on/off, and getting on/off values for each segment of the display you want to watch. Then a simple decoding algorithm that turns the list of segments switched on to the displayed value.
Just deploy it. Don't worry it's "only" supplemental. So it's supplemental today. Tomorrow we'll tear down the cells and replace them with the next generation ones anyway. If they are cheap enough to be worth being deployed as supplemental source they deserve being deployed.
And without the patent money, big pharma would never have developed many of those medicines in the first place.
Why should they? Put the research where it belongs, to university labs. Keep it open and shared, and develop cures for more diseases instead of having three manufacturers making three expensive patented variants of the same drug that differ only by a position of an unimportant methyl group, or that are different salts of the same molecule. The same money that are paid for drugs by insurance companies and Medicare, if invested purely to open research and testing, are likely to yield more of cheaper meds for the entire world, instead of being wasted on duplicated effort, lawyers, and marketing. According to some figures I encountered long ago, the cash spent on PR, advertising and marketing often exceeds the cash spent on R&D.
What could help to a degree to decrease the detection threshold is subjecting the discs and their packaging to elevated temperature (40-60 'C?) for few days under conditions of partial vacuum. This will remove the bulk of volatile chemicals from the material. The residues then can be handled with using packaging materials with added activated carbon, which absorbs the organic chemicals the characteristic scent consists from. Silica gel may do almost as good job too.
A solution for standby power consumption is simple. Use a supercapacitor for feeding the standby microcontroller, and when the capacitor voltage drops under a limit, switch on the mains power for few seconds to recharge it. The mains switch can be realized as a solid-state relay with an optically driven SCR. So instead of eating 5-10 watts all the time when off, it will eat 10-15 watts couple times per day for few seconds, cutting down the losses. For "hard" startup with depleted supercapacitor, there may be a manual pushbutton shorting the SCR. For case of power blackouts, there may be an autostart circuit that activates for few seconds after connection to the mains, opening the SCR and recharging the capacitor. Simple as that, and it can be all integrated into one module that becomes very cheap if made in high volumes.
Value may also be pretty much dependent on availability. A book I can order from Amazon and it arrives within couple days has much less value for me than the same book I can download as a PDF for free within half-hour, if I find out I need to read a chapter of it the very same night.
By making something more available and less scarce, you may increase its value.
Easier. Just make each graphite lead unique by embedding a suitable microtaggant into the material; perhaps based on DNA molecules, perhaps some unique hologram microdots, perhaps something like this... - and correlate the serial number of each pencil with the ID number of the purchaser.
I guess you are young, think you can consistently find and keep well-paying jobs in the future, and stay healthy.
Let's say how you change the tune of your song when an expensive-to-treat illness hits, or the age starts taking its toll, and the survival instincts kick in. Few people from your ideologic camp then don't change their ideologies.
Screw Apple. Set up a standard control protocol, make a protocol converter from some $1 microcontroller that converts between the open standard and the Apple Crap, build it into the iPod dock connector, and everybody is happy. Maybe with the honorable exception of a couple Apple execs. But who cares about them, as long as the electronics works.
We are the technicians. If they don't want to give us the stuff, we should be able to make it themselves. Our soldering irons are our permission.
RoHS is a scam. Just ignore it wherever you can, and opt for non-RoHS stuff (in case of complete boards); the leadless solders are rumoured to develop cracks after few years of thermal cycles.
Thoughts about robbing a bank detected. Does the target want to rob the bank, is he making security systems for living and this thoughts are reflexive, or does he want to write a detective fiction?
When I was younger, we had those things, I think they were called books. They actually required some effort to read, though; also, having an imagination of one's own usually enhanced the storytelling instead of colliding with it like in case of moving pictures. Geez, am I *that* old?
My EE teacher had such problem. One day he laid a bare wire along the wall, and through a current limiting capacitor he fed it with pulsed high voltage. The next day a few drunks from the village walked funny and since then nobody pissed at his house.
You can choose to not watch TV, however shocking the advice is. There are those rectangular things called books, and if you just can't go without the moving pictures, there's always Netflix or a plain old DVD (or perhaps still even VHS tape) rental shop. For news, there's the Internet, or, if you want it real-time, radio.
Television is a lousy babysitter anyway, and lousier still are parents who delegate it to that role.
It does not matter if the process of receiver getting the data involves tuning into the frequency of a broadcast carrier wave and thus requesting its reception, or fetching an URL (a kind of "frequency" too). Slight difference in the underlying mechanism, same result.
You want to double-dip, be found AND not allow the one who allows others to find your pages to profit from it. If you don't want to be seen, add a password to.htaccess and manually distribute the access credentials. Instantly, nobody can find you without your explicit consent, and you have what you want, which includes practically zero pageviews. Voila, problem solved.
C'mon, like all those crybabies never ever clicked the "Cached" link when they couldn't get a slashdotted (or server-down, or too slow, or expired) page. Why block a useful service?
With so many laws, virtually everybody is a criminal, whether they know it or not. The only difference against "real" criminals is that they didn't get caught.
When there are professional lawyers specializing at different areas of the Law, while for the plebs ignorance is no excuse, something is wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
For more instruments you can deal via USB, USB-to-serial converters, or eg. a pair of Netmos serial port cards, which will add 8 more RS232 ports to your machine. GPIB is IMHO an overpriced monstrosity.
JTAG-enabled chips, other in-system-programming silicon (eg. ispGAL), microcontrollers with bootloaders... Dude, you're *so* 80's.
Alternatively, slap an USB or RS232 or RS485 interface to a cheap microcontroller with built-in ADC (usually 10-bit, usually multiplexed to several possible input pins) and suitable analog circuits for sensing the values required, and log to a computer or to a data storage (eg. smartcard).
Yet another alternative, using your approach, is taking the image, finding out the approximate positions of the centers of the LCD segments, finding the image brightness thresholds for segment on/off, and getting on/off values for each segment of the display you want to watch. Then a simple decoding algorithm that turns the list of segments switched on to the displayed value.
Just deploy it. Don't worry it's "only" supplemental. So it's supplemental today. Tomorrow we'll tear down the cells and replace them with the next generation ones anyway. If they are cheap enough to be worth being deployed as supplemental source they deserve being deployed.
Why should they? Put the research where it belongs, to university labs. Keep it open and shared, and develop cures for more diseases instead of having three manufacturers making three expensive patented variants of the same drug that differ only by a position of an unimportant methyl group, or that are different salts of the same molecule. The same money that are paid for drugs by insurance companies and Medicare, if invested purely to open research and testing, are likely to yield more of cheaper meds for the entire world, instead of being wasted on duplicated effort, lawyers, and marketing. According to some figures I encountered long ago, the cash spent on PR, advertising and marketing often exceeds the cash spent on R&D.
What could help to a degree to decrease the detection threshold is subjecting the discs and their packaging to elevated temperature (40-60 'C?) for few days under conditions of partial vacuum. This will remove the bulk of volatile chemicals from the material. The residues then can be handled with using packaging materials with added activated carbon, which absorbs the organic chemicals the characteristic scent consists from. Silica gel may do almost as good job too.
-1 grammar nazi.
A solution for standby power consumption is simple. Use a supercapacitor for feeding the standby microcontroller, and when the capacitor voltage drops under a limit, switch on the mains power for few seconds to recharge it. The mains switch can be realized as a solid-state relay with an optically driven SCR. So instead of eating 5-10 watts all the time when off, it will eat 10-15 watts couple times per day for few seconds, cutting down the losses. For "hard" startup with depleted supercapacitor, there may be a manual pushbutton shorting the SCR. For case of power blackouts, there may be an autostart circuit that activates for few seconds after connection to the mains, opening the SCR and recharging the capacitor. Simple as that, and it can be all integrated into one module that becomes very cheap if made in high volumes.
By making something more available and less scarce, you may increase its value.
Think of the children.
Trust the Computer. It's your friend.
Welcome to reality, and be glad for the remainder that actually works well. It makes the whole shebang worth existing.
Hello actually checking the site server certificate.
I guess you are young, think you can consistently find and keep well-paying jobs in the future, and stay healthy.
Let's say how you change the tune of your song when an expensive-to-treat illness hits, or the age starts taking its toll, and the survival instincts kick in. Few people from your ideologic camp then don't change their ideologies.
We are the technicians. If they don't want to give us the stuff, we should be able to make it themselves. Our soldering irons are our permission.
RoHS is a scam. Just ignore it wherever you can, and opt for non-RoHS stuff (in case of complete boards); the leadless solders are rumoured to develop cracks after few years of thermal cycles.
I smell a lot of victimization here.
When I was younger, we had those things, I think they were called books. They actually required some effort to read, though; also, having an imagination of one's own usually enhanced the storytelling instead of colliding with it like in case of moving pictures. Geez, am I *that* old?
My EE teacher had such problem. One day he laid a bare wire along the wall, and through a current limiting capacitor he fed it with pulsed high voltage. The next day a few drunks from the village walked funny and since then nobody pissed at his house.
Some problems have simple technical solutions.
Television is a lousy babysitter anyway, and lousier still are parents who delegate it to that role.
One word: SLAPP.
You want to double-dip, be found AND not allow the one who allows others to find your pages to profit from it. If you don't want to be seen, add a password to .htaccess and manually distribute the access credentials. Instantly, nobody can find you without your explicit consent, and you have what you want, which includes practically zero pageviews. Voila, problem solved.
C'mon, like all those crybabies never ever clicked the "Cached" link when they couldn't get a slashdotted (or server-down, or too slow, or expired) page. Why block a useful service?
When there are professional lawyers specializing at different areas of the Law, while for the plebs ignorance is no excuse, something is wrong.
Explains nicely what Kruger is about, and where such laws come from.
If they never did it, what stops them from doing it the first time?
(*) all of the above