Messages

1

Cxx0 Hardware / Probably Fried The Charging Circuit

« on: September 23, 2011, 09:23:25 am »

Excellent! Which hub dynamo do you have and what value capacitor did you use? Do you measure 5V now, instead of the 4.7V you had before?

For headlamp operation, LED headlamps are *very* good at low speed. One of these may give you enough light when your Z is charging - no guarantees. But, as they give much more light than a halogen (x2 light over x2 area - I've measured my B&M IQ Fly) you may consider it a useful upgrade, even if Z-charging doesn't work

Richard

Hub dynamo is Shimano DH-2N30-E/HB-NX22 (what a code!), 6 V / 2.4 W.

Smoothing capacitor for the rectifier is 470 uF electrolytic. I don't know how many magnets there are in the hub,
and speed is variable anyhow, so could not calculate any precise value. Seems to do its' job.

Also added a 5 W 9.1 V zener diode as a shunt voltage stablizer. And 330 nF and 100 nF ceramic capacitors to
reduce ripple voltage of the regulator.

Measured voltage was always above 4.9 V. Something like 4.97 V at lower speeds, closer to 4.9 V when I
pedaled faster.

I forgot I have a battery led light too. Has been in my bicycle jacket's pocket since last winter. Idea behind that
was, that it is unpleasent to change burnt bulb on the road when temperature is below freezing. Has happened
only once since I installed hub dynamo though. Light was still bright, batteries ok    I can use that, if I need
gps and headlight at the same time.

Next head light I'll buy for the hub dynamo will definetely be a led light.

2

Cxx0 Hardware / Probably Fried The Charging Circuit

« on: September 15, 2011, 10:29:28 am »

Road test done, works perfectly, thanks again gromituk!

I tried with totally empty battery. Took about two minutes before charging led lit, but after that no problems at all.
Led starts to blink when speed is 4 km/h (2,5 mph), but already at walking speed 7 km/h (4,35 mph) stays on
constantly. Max speed I tried was 48 km/h (29,8 mph), still nothing to worry, yellow led still shines. At home plugged zaurus to its own charger, and charging continues.

I also tried the head light at the same time, but as I suspected, the light was very dim, and zaurus stopped charging.

Goal reached, but I wonder if it is even possible to use those two at the same time without second dynamo at
rear wheel? Bulb "eats" 2,4 watts, so no much left to zaurus. Perhaps then, if I change to led lamp?

3

Cxx0 Hardware / Probably Fried The Charging Circuit

« on: September 14, 2011, 01:48:55 pm »

Bad luck having to go through all this grief. At least you tried but, as gromituk says, a bike dynamo is a complex source of power. You would most definitely have needed a smoothing capacitor, quite a large value, to supplement your rectifier pack as the frequency would be quite low at low speeds. Especially so as you have a hub dynamo!

The fact that you measured up to 4.7V on your DVM is consistent with the regulated 5V being periodically "interrupted" as the rectified, un-smoothed voltage fell to zero every half-cycle. I should think it was this that confused the charging circuit and brought about the failure.

I seem to recall that the Z needs a 1-amp power supply - perhaps someone can confirm this. Even so, all bike dynamos I have ever seen only produce 0.5-amps. (Even the 6-watt hub dynamo my Nearest & Dearest has on her bike is 12V @ 0.5A) You *could* make a suitable power supply using a switch-mode regulator to translate (in excess of) 10V @ 0.5A down to 5V @ 1A when you're pedaling fast enough, but I suspect this is quite a challenging project.

Richard

Yepp, thanks to gromituk seems to work now. I made some modifications as gromituk kindly suggested and  Zaurus accepts now the hub dynamo charger (yellow charging led lits and does not hamper charging by the plug charger). I have not tested on the road yet, it's been very rainy here past few days, and the water shield I've planned is still in proggress.

4

Cxx0 Hardware / Probably Fried The Charging Circuit

« on: September 07, 2011, 11:50:43 am »

Thanks for a quick and very thorough reply gromituk!

Yepp, I considered zener-diodes, but I've read many succes stories of using dynamos
to charge cell phones and laptops even by just 4 diodes. Perhaps zaurus is more picky,
have to try that, thanks.

I had a halogen bicycle light more than 10 years ago, which had two zeners.
I now use a regular light bulb, no zeners. After two years of hub dynamo usage
only one lamp has burned out. That was quite normal on bottle dynamo too. Burning
did not happen at high speed. And reason why I still use this old lamp is it's great
reflector. I have heard people thought there was a car coming, when they saw
my bicyle light  

About smoothing capacitor, no I did not use any. I have an impression that ic-diodebridges
do contain a smoothing capacitor. But as I have said, my knowledge is thin.
Have to try that too, I probably have suitable one in my component box.

Almost every time I've soldered during past years (only a few times) I do miss an oscillocope at
some point.  A 5 euros digital multimeter is quite limited.  Luckily this time found digital
arm dso oscillocopes which do not cost more than a few dozen euros/dollars. Ordered one
instantly.

And lastly good news: I erased nand and reflashed it, and now charging works again.
Already charged an empty battery to full, no problems. Did not try that on my zaurus
I took to be repaired, I need to visit there soon.

5

Cxx0 Hardware / Probably Fried The Charging Circuit

« on: September 06, 2011, 11:15:18 am »

I've used my Zaurus 3100 as a gps device on long bicycle trips.

The gps-card I have (Billionton) sucks battery quite soon empty, so
decided to do a travel charger. My bike's hub dynamo gives 6 V / 2,4 W,
and thus 0,4 amperes, as I learned at school many years ago.

Added a diodebridge to smoothen voltage to dc, and a 5 V regulator
to ensure voltage won't get too high.

Then rode a test trip voltage meter mounted on handle bar. Voltage
newer rised over 4,7 volts even I pedaled 50 km/h (31 mph). I almost
never exceed that speed.

I thought it was safe to use the system to charge zaurus.

Soon on first trip I almost fell, fastening strap twisted connector
quite strongly. After that I could not charge even using the regular
plug charger, led wont lit up, bottom gets hot under power connector.
Took Zaurus to be repaired, has been there almost 10 weeks, not
very promising. First they said it can be fixed, last time a called
they were still waiting for spare parts.

After that secured the fastening belts, triple checked polarity.
Did a test drive at very low speed, but seems I've burn't also
my second Z's charging circuit. Sometimes yellow led lits, usually
just blinks when charging with plug charger.

Does not hamper my usual usage, I have an external charger.

Seems it's time to forget dynamo-charger, but I wonder what wen't
wrong. The plug charger gives 5 V and 1 A (readings on sticker, I also
measured 5 volts).

I newer measured the amperes of my bike charger.
I've seen graphs of hub-dynamo's speed vs. voltage curve, and it is quite
even. So thought it would never exeed 1 A.

Can someone who has deeper knowledge of electronics tell what was wrong?

6

General Discussion / Want To Use My Sl-c1000, Any Ideas?

« on: August 21, 2011, 03:52:21 am »

Hi- How do you use your z as a Gps device?

keef

Billionton cf-gps receiver, foxtrotgps. Used gpsdrive before, but did get any gps signal after debian install.

Maps from openstreetmap.

Cradle from www.pulster.de

And that's it  

7

General Discussion / Want To Use My Sl-c1000, Any Ideas?

« on: August 19, 2011, 10:42:13 am »

My typical use would be as an e-book reader (PDFs mostly), movies, and web browsing.  However, something I would really like to use it for is to manage a home control, monitoring, and security systems.  Would be a nice device to control lighting, temp, and access security cameras.  Really would like to get back into tinkering around again.

My suggestion is that you would install some broader distro, Debian or Zubuntu for example. I have Debian on my 3100,
more than 29 000 programs to choose from. Then just do some googling, linux home automation.

I use my Z as a gps device, calculator(!), take  notes, music player and when travelling, as web surfing platform, and whatever
possible with tiny display and keyboard. That is a lot  

Openbox makes X quite responsive, other light dm:s are available too. Many pdf readers also, xpdf lightweight.

8

General Discussion / Zaurus Wifi Access Point Options

« on: June 01, 2011, 01:14:08 pm »

As far as I know it depends more on the card you use. I have an Asus card that does support WPA. With wpa_supplicant, which is part of the cacko rom, and several others, it works. I even have eduroam working. That took quite a bit of fiddling though. But in the end it turned out to be quite simple.

So, it is not the Zaurus that is the bottleneck, but the wlan card and rom you are using. Check the specs of your card and search the forum for wpa_supplicant and you'll find the info.

BTW, I have an sl-c3100 like you do ;-)

MaBo

Yepp, I have D-Link Air DFC-660w, AmbiCom WL54-CF and Planex GW-CF11X, which all support wpa2. Planex needed firmware update.

9

Debian / Solved:touch Screen Too Sensitive

« on: May 15, 2011, 08:36:43 am »

So,any hints about the newer kernel(2.6.26)?
where can I get the newer kernel?
Thank you very much cuz I'm stuck on the old kernel(2.6.24) and cannot upgrade udev package to a newer version.

http://www.penguin.cz/~utx/zaurus/feed/images/spitz/

10

Debian / Solved:touch Screen Too Sensitive

« on: March 05, 2011, 06:10:17 am »

Found it, just had to change TS_TSDEVICE to event2, was event1  

11

Debian / Debian Touch Screen Issue

« on: March 04, 2011, 11:17:39 am »

Installed kernel 2.6.26 and debian squeeze armel to SL-C3100. ts_calibrate works like it should, but in X (openbox) cursor follows mouse,
but I can't click (by tapping stylus) like in ts_calibrate.

libts installed. What is missing?

12

Debian / Solved:touch Screen Too Sensitive

« on: February 21, 2011, 05:36:12 am »

Installed debian-eabi followin 2or0's hints, just changed kernel to newer (2.6.26). Works, but touch screen calibration is so .....  

ts_calibrate opens, but the screen is so sensitive, that it is impossbile to do five separate clicks. Usually a stylus tap is interpreted as two or three.
My best effort after more than hour trying was 4 out of 5, frustrating.  And as at least two taps are on sameposition, ts_calibrate  announces determinant
is too small.

My hands ore not so bad    I have not ever before  had any issues completing screen calibration.

Is there a way to configure touch screen sensitivity?

13

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Need Help Finding Pdaxii13 For C3100

« on: July 29, 2010, 11:24:28 am »

The link above has almost everything.  There is supposed to be a file called hdimage-full.tgz which is missing.  Can this be overcome simply by installing additional packages from the feed, or is there some other purpose to this.  I believe there is also a lighter version of this called hdimage-base.tgz.

Thanks!

I have those spitz install files. PM me.

14

Off Topic forum / Xp On Sl C-1000

« on: June 06, 2010, 08:30:33 am »

My brother once showed me windows XP running on his (now mine) Zaurus SL C-1000. I tried looking around on how to do this but nothing came up. Is this possible, or was he pulling my leg?

Might have been Andromeda Debian's lxp-icewm, which is configured to look XP quite closely.

Thing that's slighty annoys me   But that's a minor glitch, Andromeda really took fire back to my SL-C3100.

15

Software / Andromeda Debian, How To Recalibrate?

« on: May 11, 2010, 11:38:22 am »

Yongguns Andromeda Debian works fine, but I don't know how to recalibrate touch screen.

  ts_calibrate only gives: ts_open: No such file or directory.

Check out this Thread.

Read Posts #7 and #9 they are the relevant ones.

Thanks a lot duo! Now I am able to use X again.