Author Archives: Skye Sweeney

The real root cause (maybe?)

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Just when you think you understand everything, life gives you a left hook.

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Sanity check for lightning detector

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

For the most part, my lightning detector is working well. I get the sporadic false alarm from the furnace kicking on or a florescent light fixture turning on or off. These false alarms are taken care of because they do … Continue reading →

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A comment on comments

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

I have been updating this build log for about a month. Very few of the comments I have gotten have been related to the material. They have all been commercial spam or feeble attempts to make a “good job” comment … Continue reading →

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Root cause to RS-232 bug found!

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Last night I found the true cause of my RS-232 problems. The question should not have been why two computers did not work when one did, but rather how did any manage to work.

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Bug update

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

This bug is now officially driving me nuts.  Just to review, for several years I have been working on building a lightning detector to shutdown my computer network during a storm when I am away from home. I learned a lot … Continue reading →

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Heartbreaking Bug Revisited

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Got time to look at the problem in much more detail. Last night I was just too upset to start work so close to bed time. Today I discovered that the baud rate was indeed correct. What i was measuring … Continue reading →

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A test of my backup strategy

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

A week ago I got a string of messages from my XP workhorse computer indicating it was unable to write to the disc. When I powered the unit back on, the system was quite obviously ill. I turned it off … Continue reading →

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A heartbreaking bug

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Last night I decided to try to find a nagging bug in my lightning detector software. The code is supposed to not output a strike severity number unless it is different than the previous value. I was seeing several cases … Continue reading →

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First use of Sugru

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

I have been looking at purchasing some Sugru since I learned about it some months ago. Sugru is a hand workable silicone putty that air cures in about 24 hours. It becomes a medium hard rubber solid. It comes in … Continue reading →

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Solution to reboot issue?

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Could it be that I found the reason that my lightning detector rebooted on strong sparks? When I ran the project without the programming cable connected I stopped getting resets. Connected it would reboot. Perhaps some kind of ground loop … Continue reading →

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