Having watched the TouchPro 2 roll out to all the other major carriers in the US, AT&T finally got their version, renamed the Tilt 2.  AT&T released their edition with Windows Mobile 6.5 right out the gate, which is why I suspect it was held back… I patiently waited for its release, and went out and got it the day after the release… So what do I think?

I won’t bore you with the technical goodies, they can be seen over on HTCs site.  Needless to say, HTC have rolled out a pretty nice phone yet again. 

TouchFlo 3D is very nice, giving you quick finger access to nearly everything you need.  However, I noticed this seemed a little sluggish if you were moving around too quickly, or had a couple of programs running in the background.  When looking at the memory usage, after a reboot, with TF3D enabled, it phone already ran at using 70% of the memory idle.  If I swapped back and forth through some of the tabs, it would start climbing, and wouldn’t go back down.  It wouldn’t be long before I could have it sitting at 80% with just a single program running in the background.

After some poking around, I figured out that there were some tweaks I could do to reduce that, such as disabling the camera, music, stock, and internet tabs.

Some other issues I noticed with the TF3D interface, the home tab couldn’t really be customized so I cannot see my task lists, just upcoming appointments, and a giant clock.  If you want to do anything more with the front page, you have to drop the TF3D (at least that’s what I can figure anyway).  Swapping back to the Windows Mobile default (Titanium), memory usage dropped down to 55%, and I could put pretty much anything that had a “Today” plugin on the front page.

Like any provider, AT&T customized the hell out of it, specifically adding in stuff they wanted you to see, or have access to.  The problem is, you cannot remove any of this out of the box.  So that demo game of Sudoko that gives you 3 days to play? Yea, you’re stuck with the files eating up space.  What’s even worse, the phone is bundled with lots of demos and stuff you probably won’t ever touch.  Out of the box, the phone is already down over half the space on it, stuff you cannot remove.

AT&T also have a different keyboard layout than any of the other TouchPro2 models.  Number keypad is embedded in the normal alpha-lines, whilst several special characters (commonly used) are pushed onto the top number row.  Depending on your usage, this could be a good, or bad thing.  I like it myself.

As I’m a tinkerer, I played with it stock for a bit, but like others, I wanted more out of it.  Courtesy of the XDA Developers forum, comes rebuilt OSes for the various models of phones.  Including a bundle for the TouchPro2/Tilt2 (also known as Rhodium).  There are a lot of great helpers, and some seriously smart people over there.  Flashing the ROM is relatively easy, there is even a walk through.

I went with EnergyRom “Photon”, having seen plenty of people using it, and having nearly a 700 page following.  There are two versions, Windows Mobile 6.5, or 6.5.1.  The 6.5.1 is a little more cutting edge, and what I decided to give a shot.  There are some tweaks that are a little odd, not from the ROM itself, but the Windows Mobile package (like start button at the bottom instead of the top).

Now the phone has been flashed, it’s a night and day difference between the AT&T version, and this version.  For example, TF3D is no longer sluggish on start, and can quickly zip through all the tabs without any signs of delays.  The phone itself is generally more responsive.  And NRG has included some great tools that weren’t bundled with the AT&T version.  Not only is it faster, it looks nicer.  However, the same customization issues mentioned above still apply with the TF3D here, after all, it’s pretty much the same software, just a newer version.

Some of the locations of the icons are a little odd.  Getting to the phone dialer now requires 4 button presses, compared to the 2 before, which probably means NRG uses his mostly for everything other than the phone, but it’s easy to move that around.

So my overall opinion? Out of the box, it’s a great phone, has everything you need, and easy to work with.  Being a tinkerer, I couldn’t live with out the box, so installing the new ROM makes it so much better.  I’m probably going to roll back down to the 6.5 edition because the start menu at the bottom is bugging me, especially as the AT&T version has a hardware start button too.

As a follow up to the previous Tinkering with Temperature post, here is more on what I did, and how.

I made some alterations to my original schematic, as I was originally going with a serial to RJ45 conversion.  I figured I’d save myself some headaches, and use one of the Cisco console cables I had laying around.  This had a slightly different pinout on the RJ45 end, compared to the serial cable I was going to make.  Pinouts for the cable can be found all over the internet, including Cisco’s own site, but I used this as a reference.

Now I had my new schematic, I put it onto a board.  As with my schematic, KiCad helped out here too.  It mocked out the basic components, I just had to rearrange them, and then draw tracks.  I did read somewhere that there is an auto-route feature, but I couldn’t find/figure it out, not that mine was complicated, and I couldn’t figure out a few lines.  So I ultimately ended up with the image to the right.

Once drawn out, a simple case of printing on special paper, or you can do it the cheaper way of using magazine pages.  I went with the later.  When printed,  it’s just a case of taping the paper to the board, and applying heat.

When applying heat, you must remember to turn off the steam options, otherwise it won’t work properly.  This can take some time, depending on the toner, paper thickness, and the iron involved.  Once you’re satisfied with enough transfer, time to get the paper wet.  This will dissolve the paper, but leave the toner on the board.

Now is a good time to inspect the board, and make sure that any missing traces are covered.  Usually you can get away with a sharpie, but you can get special etch-resistant pens.  I went over all the lines again just to make extra sure.

At this point, we could etch the board, but it’s still a little large, so I trimmed off the larger side, and left the shortest excess attached.  This gave me a good point to hold, as well as a good indication of how well it was going.

Now it’s etching time.  Following the instructions carefully, I did this outside in a well ventilated area, with poor light.  Okay maybe I cannot follow all instructions well, but I did wear gloves, and did this away from anything metal.

After about 15 minutes of agitation, and careful inspection, the board was etched.  Note that part of the board wasn’t etched in the picture, but that was part that was in the excess area.  Another quick trim to remove that excess piece, so it’d fit nicely into the housing.

I borrowed Jeremy’s drill, and a bit from Rick. I quickly drilled the parts, and got to work soldering.  One thing to note is that when soldering, and constructing, follow your diagrams closely.  I originally soldered one of the diodes in backwards, so it wasn’t working until I desoldered it, and put it back in correctly.

I’d carefully designed the size of the PCB to be oversized, I could have clearly chopped an extra inch or so off, because it was to fit inside an old Linksys workgroup switch box.  This ended up being about 4×6.  The RJ45 connectors were a little low profile for the case, but it doesn’t matter too much, as it’s going to be hiding in the server room away from careful inspection of most people.

The final product looks like this.  Sits nicely inside the chassis, and looks pretty good.  It was a 5 port workgroup switch, with port 5 being disabled if you had an “uplink” cable in place.  In my case, port 6 is going to be the serial port.

Now for Monday, build some cables, once I’ve figured out all the lengths I need.  I did do a quick breadboard test with a RJ45 connector, and 2 wires crimped down to a breadboard to ensure it was working, and got good readings (compared with my fluke tester). 

I’ll power additional pictures once I have all the cables in place, and tucked into the racks.

Sometimes my blog is all over the place.  Mostly work related, and other times it springs back to stuff about me, or stuff I’m working on outside of work.   This is a cross-over project I’ve been working on (and something I’ve wanted to play with for a while).  A temperature sensor…

Right, doesn’t seem to exciting does it?  Maybe not for some, but I have an unusual interest in information and data.

We recently had an A/C failure in the office, which triggered our A/C unit to alarm, and out control unit for the A/C to alarm, and for some odd reason, not start the secondary A/C.  Looking at the logs, it appears the time from outage to Jeremy forcing the backup A/C online was about 2 hours.  Not too bad, but we’d have picked up on it a little earlier if we’d had a remote environment sensor, something I keep trying to get but keep getting denied on.

So I set out to look at cheap alternatives.  First stop was Instructables.  This is where I stumbled across a couple of different ideas, but the one that popped out of my head was this little project.  This is a very simple example of using the Dallas 1-Wire system, a resistor, and a couple of diodes.

The really cool thing about this example is the author demonstrates the expansion of the system from a single sensor to multiple sensors by simply adding more DS1820 sensors to a CAT5e cable.

So with some scheming, I grabbed a couple of DS18B20 sensors from hacktronics, and the rest of  the components from Mouser Electronics, increased the count a little to allow for mistakes, and a home model, and set out to build a simple temperature sensor.

The little image above shows 3 of the DS18B20’s connected to an Arduino (hidden off shot).  It clearly looks more than the “1 Wire” that the name hints at it using.  However, what’s happening here is the power is being fed in on the same line that the data requests come in (pin 2) on, and pin 1 and 3 are grounded.

I built on the idea from the original project, and decided to figure out a nicer package for it.  I figured this would actually be quite perfect for an RJ45 case, a collection of network cables (allowing me to vary the length to the sensors), and a single central point of collection.  This sparked an idea in my brain, a hub for data collection. Then it struck me, repurposing the chassis of an old Linksys workgroup switch.  This is a 6 RJ45 port switch, with only 5 operating at once, but it was perfect.  A quick schema modification, and the use of an old Cisco serial cable (the ones that go from serial port to RJ45 connector) and a few more inexpensive parts from Mouser, and you can build a mini-temperature hub.

I’ve built schematics, now all I have to do is get some board, etch it, and solder the parts to it, and I’ll be all set.  I’ve tested the theory out on breadboard, and it works great.  With the use of the hub, I can put the DS18B20 sensors on the end of short cables and use standard network cables to place them as far away as 100m.

I’ll post updates, and more pictures as I finish the product, but it’s turning into a fun little project for me, yes yes, I know, I’m a nerd.