Reset transformer on Event 20/20 bas active speakers

Posted on 2011-09-16 by Daniel Belasco Rogers

Thought I’d just put this up for my own record and because I didn’t find anything online that gave anything useful. Here’s how to change the input voltage on these Event active speakers from 110V to 240V. Photos should be self explanatory. Ignore the warning about no serviceable parts but heed the one about electrical shock – those capacitors are big and could carry quite a charge, even after unplugging, try not to touch the circuit board unless you’re sure you’ve discharged everything.

Wired for 240V

Wired for 240V


240V Diagram

240V Diagram


Wired for 120V

Wired for 120V


120V Diagram

120V Diagram


Why have I got them? I’m looking after them for my neighbour, Matthew Barney collaborator Jonathan Bepler. Once playing, they’re good but they’re noisy buggers when there’s no input – think this is what drove him mad in his studio.

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ECT for laptop

Posted on 2011-09-13 by Daniel Belasco Rogers

TVT Packet Filter Miniport / Ethernet card problem solved by shutting down the laptop badly.

A strange thing happened to my Lenovo Thinkpad T61p recently that I never really got to the bottom of and has subsequently cured itself.

Last week, after working in the Windoze partition on a flash site I’m building, the Ethernet card started to play up, giving me a dreaded yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager. Not for the first time, I noticed that the TVT Filter Miniport device was also bearing the mark and I thought that the situation would resolve if only I could remove this. It seems that it is an extremely seldom needed component to Lenovo’s support, enabling a logged-in technician to access your computer and help you out (spooky and useless for most users).

What a different experience it is trying to get help for something like this for Windows as opposed to Linux. Basically, I never got to the bottom of it, the ‘Help’ in Windows basically running out when a file that earlier versions of the OS had wasn’t there any more in later revisions. This meant that there was no way I could see to uninstall the pesky and useless device that I suspected of fouling up the Ethernet card.

It was yesterday that the strange thing happened: I’d read somewhere that some other hapless user had been able to solve their ethernet problem by starting up in Windows without the battery. I dutifully took the battery out and forgot that I’d done it for a couple of days. I started up the laptop in Linux as per usual and had to plug an external hard drive in and rather than turning the power strip on, I turned it off. Because the battery was out, the laptop stopped immediately, just like you’re supposed not to do. Luckily it wasn’t in the middle of writing to the hard drive and nothing was damaged, but when I booted up again (in Linux), the Ethernet problem had disappeared!

I was very relieved because not only had it meant that I couldn’t plug in to the network for better speed, it was also fouling up the processor, going through regular cycles of 60% usage which slowed the whole system down greatly unless I turned networking off entirely.

Sometimes, the electric equivalent of hitting the failing equipment works, it seems. Who’d have thought.

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Time lapse how to (Linux)

Posted on 2011-09-12 by Daniel Belasco Rogers

This, I hope, is the definitive version of the time-lapse how to. Having had earlier cracks at it, I think this one represents the refined source. Here’s the how to.

1. A capture script

#!/bin/bash

cd $HOME/captures

D1=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
D2=`date +%Y%m%d_%H-%M-%S`

# If the date directory does not exist, create it
if [ ! -d $D1 ] ; then
mkdir -p $D1
fi

#cd to this new directory
cd $HOME/captures/$D1

# fswebcam seems to solve the problems with streamer and vlc. The -S option
# is 'skip' which brilliantly discards the first N frames before
# saving the final one. The -r option is for 'resolution' i.e. size of
# recorded frame in pixels

fswebcam -d /dev/video0 -S 10 -r 320x240 $D2.jpg

Save this somewhere (remember where)
NB – if you want to use an external webcam, check if it is on video1 and alter the last line accordingly.

2. Edit your crontab
crontab -e
add a line like this one:
*/5 * * * * /PATH/TO/CAPTURE/SCRIPT.sh
(insert the real path to where you put the capture script after the space after the last star)

3. Pyrenamer is your friend
The nice script in capture.sh writes files with the current date and time. I copy the images I want into a folder within the date folder within captures and then rename these with pyrenamer, thus keeping an archive of the images should anything go wrong. You can also trim images you don’t want in the final film this way. Using the num3 option in pyrenamer, your images will end up sequentially numbered like 001.jpg, 002.jpg, 003.jpg…

4. Stitch together into a film with ffmpeg
cd to the directory with the sequentially numbered images
evoke ffmpeg like so
ffmpeg -r 8 -intra -qscale 1 -i %03.jpg NameOfFilm.mp4
the -r is the frame rate, -intra turns of motion detection, -qscale makes it best quality.

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The Suffolk Psychogeophysics Summit

Posted on 2011-09-05 by Daniel Belasco Rogers

…was fabulous.

Happy Psychogeophysicists in Rendlesham Forest

Happy Psychogeophysicists in Rendlesham Forest

Thanks so much to Martin Howse, Kathrin Guenter, Ryan Jordan and Jonathan Kemp for organising such a flexible, fascinating, far-out and fun-filled week. I unfortunately had to come back on Friday morning so I missed out on Aldeburgh and Orford Ness but I did get to see Rendlesham, break into the air base, make a ghost detector, do some dowsing at Grimes Graves and generally be in the happy and non-judgemental company of a bunch of nutters like myself. I will be catching up with a day by day account here but the Summit page is here.

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Psychogeophysics Summit Day 3

Posted on 2011-09-01 by Daniel Belasco Rogers

A glorious late summer day, we set out in the van to Grimes Graves, a Neolithic flint mine I’d been to with Dad not two months previously. I left my camera and eeepc recording above (the grass and clouds in the time-lapse) while I went down alone with the Ghost Detector we’d made the previous day. I wanted to test its properties in a ‘clean’ environment and sure enough, I only picked up the wiring for the lighting – but this very clearly, giving me faith in its fidelity. I was a little disappointed I got nothing from the flint nodules though.

After this we stopped off on the way home at Woolpit where there is a strange legend about two green children and a holy well. I was very impressed by the church of St Mary which has a wonderful angel (hammerbeam) roof and some great stone and wood carvings.

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