3G modem - some links

...to pages that I am too tired to read right now.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_3G_Modem

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Huawei_E1550_3G_modem


Not a priority but useful for remote access to files and to set the clock.

Logitech 270

Logitech camera works. Easier to disassemble than the Lifecam. Seems to chug along at 640x480 native resolution with no trouble. None of the image chopping that i (and perhaps nobody else) have seen.

Images seem B/W - driver issue? Not an issue for IR images however.
Images seem fine now - user issue?

Board is wider than than the lifecam - may cause issues mounting it. I doubt it will fit in tunnel climate vents. Have stripped camera body and lens, heavy duty USB cable wired, with cables for external power to drive IR LEDS. The 'external power' will drive the camera and lights from the 12v, rather than taking power from the USB socket - which is fused at approx 100mA. The micro USB that drives the RPi will also come off this regulator.

08/07/12
I have wired the RPi and and USB camera to a 5v reg and 12v supply... and will see how long it stays up. 352x288 at 2 fps. I dropped the resolution again - after dropping the swapfile it crashed on a motion event this evening.

Problems with maintaining a swapfile;
Rapid file swapping on an SD card is going to have a negative effect on it's lifespan. However, a USB hard disk is going to use more power - potentially about 600ma from what little research I have done - so i moderate increase in performance is going to carry hefty price in additional battery power.

09/07/12
Camera still up, but it's 00:47. Time for bed.

10/07/12
Camera still going 14:07
Brightness and colour have been doing some strange things. The picture seems to have stayed green during daylight, and the brightness has been steadily ramping up. Will swap back to Lifecam when I get a chance and see what that is does over 24hrs.

Panda notes

Looking at the pandaboard for better performance.
http://pandaboard.org/
http://uk.farnell.com/circuitco/pandaboard-es/pandaboard-es-omap4460-arm-cortex/dp/2098930?ref=lookahead


It comes with a price, but this looks hopeful;

http://adventuresinsilicon.blogspot.de/2011/03/pandaboard-using-webcam-as-security.html

08/07/12
For the +£100 difference, it may be worth hanging in there with the RPi for a bit. I think there are still gains to be made. Have a class 10 card to try... may experiment with swapfiles on USB HHDs.

Battery under voltage protection circuits

http://gorum.ca/lvdisc.html

battery storage

http://www.tuffboxes.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=tb1

Network Storage

Creating the network storage

The remaining free space on the SD card was partitioned and formatted as FAT32. This was performed on another linux machine to save time.

On the RPi, fdisk -l was used to find the name of the partition.
Then added the partition by adding the following line to /etc/fstab
/dev/mmcblk0p4  /media/data     vfat    defaults        0       0


Trying the NAS instructions on http://elinux.org/R-Pi_NAS#Configure_a_public_storage_area_on_the_RPi

updated the instructions with pdbedit -a -u bufo to add the user 'bufo' to samba, as per;
http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/pdbedit8.html

The private share is working, but public isn't.
Trying again with these instructions http://www.debuntu.org/guest-file-sharing-with-samba - it seems to work ok.




A man called Jeremy has this working with lightpd on Archlinux, his notes may be more ledgible too;

http://jeremyblythe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/battery-powered-wireless-motion.html

Useful stuff about getting the RPi online;

http://jeremyblythe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/python-freedns-client-on-raspberry-pi.html

Hexxeh-rc3

Hexxeh-rc3 

Hexxeh-rc3 is a "raspbian" disk image available from http://www.raspbian.org/HexxehImages.

Raspbian based on debian and optimized for best performance on the Raspberry Pi. Importantly, the hexxeh-rc3 image also supports UVC webcams, such as the lifecam cinema. I have performed the following changes to the installation. It seems to run

remove the desktop

apt-get remove xorg

apt-get remove lxde

set the time

apt-get install ntp fake-hwclock

update the system (requires reboot)

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

rpi-update

load the software

apt-get install ffmpeg

apt-get install motion

apt-get install samba
apt-get install rcconf 


N.B. rcconf didn't do it on it's own; had to edit /etc/default/motion

Linux notes 

Renew ssh key

ssh-keygen -R 192.168.1.80

Make the disk image (mac)

diskutil list

sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1


dd if=/Users/michael/Desktop/RaspberryPi/Images/2012-06-18-wheezy-beta.img of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m

Create new user

su

useradd bufo
passwd bufo
mkdir /home/bufo
chown bufo:users /home/bufo