The Dude wrote:i mean is (s)he going to be using it on the school bus or while away from internet? would a $30 fire tablet work with a spotify subscription instead? Why does it have to be an mp3 player

School bus, yes -- this is the kid who has the anxiety problems and just getting her on the bus has been challenging as she doesn't like the noise. So we're going to pair this with noise-cancelling headphones.

I think Mrs. Vox's idea of getting a cheap smartphone could be a winner here.

phatj wrote:

azrider wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:Think I'd favor a folding frame and regular mattress. Hide them in a closet if you have space or even slide them behind the sofa.

I bought a couple of these on sale and cheap frames for my guest rooms but I have the luxury of leaving them set up. Very comfortable especially for the price I paid.

if you go that route... i have one of these for my spare bedroom/office.

https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Brands-Hercules-Heavy-Duty-Foundation/dp/B00EQG7LVA/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_196_lp_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=A186CXQ9PJTJH94GGVV0

worked well as an everyday bed for a while.

We went with essentially this solution for our guest room and it has worked out great. But for the playroom I need to be able to put away the bed. Not enough closet space so some sort of convertible will be needed.

@Mrs Vox, I did look at Ikea and their convertible sofas would do the trick I think, particularly with a memory foam topper. Problem is transportation. I'm fairly certain I can't fit the boxes in either of our cars, and they want about $200 to deliver to us out in the sticks. (Then again, this might end up cheaper than other options...)

just rent a van/pickup from Lowes or Home Depot for $20

rent the home depot truck from next door and do the trip for 30$

phatj wrote:

The Dude wrote:i mean is (s)he going to be using it on the school bus or while away from internet? would a $30 fire tablet work with a spotify subscription instead? Why does it have to be an mp3 player

School bus, yes -- this is the kid who has the anxiety problems and just getting her on the bus has been challenging as she doesn't like the noise. So we're going to pair this with noise-cancelling headphones.

I think Mrs. Vox's idea of getting a cheap smartphone could be a winner here.

We gave our daughter who is 6 one of our old iphone 5's that were sitting in a drawer forgotten about and she loves it. We don't have service on it so it's just a wifi device, but she can go on youtube pandora and spotify it's perfect for her.

Bill McNeal wrote:

phatj wrote:

The Dude wrote:i mean is (s)he going to be using it on the school bus or while away from internet? would a $30 fire tablet work with a spotify subscription instead? Why does it have to be an mp3 player

School bus, yes -- this is the kid who has the anxiety problems and just getting her on the bus has been challenging as she doesn't like the noise. So we're going to pair this with noise-cancelling headphones.

I think Mrs. Vox's idea of getting a cheap smartphone could be a winner here.

We gave our daughter who is 6 one of our old iphone 5's that were sitting in a drawer forgotten about and she loves it. We don't have service on it so it's just a wifi device, but she can go on youtube pandora and spotify it's perfect for her.

We did this for my son. My daughter, at the time, had an ipod touch which was also strictly a wifi device.

Good old amazon ads @ the bottom of BSG showed this thing: couchbed Seems like an innovative take on the problem.

OK, I need some advice for a 'project board' for a raspberry pi based project. No, not a breadboard. I'm wiring all external components via screw terminals, because when this project is baked, the pi and the i/o boards will be moved to its permanent home and hooked up to its permanent devices.

Right now we have a siren control panel in the firehouse. It's hardware PLC based. When they fry, it's like $1500 to replace. And we can't do any updates on our own- we need to go back to the controls company. And the last time one fried, the model of plc was obsoleted, and everything needed to be re-programmed for the new PLC model- and it still doesn't work correctly all the time, and the company can't figure out why.

SO I'm gonna replace the PLC with a raspberry pi and some additional i/o boards. Probably $200 worth of hardware. And $100 of that is optional for a new feature I'm adding. HUZZAH!

So what I want to do here in my office is set up a mock-up of all the inputs and outputs. The inputs are three momentary switches which represent the momentary closure that is generated when we are dispatched to a call; a momentary hardware switch on the siren control that emulates that same function; and a hardware switch to activate the roof siren (I hit that mofo for like 3 minutes at the conclusion of SB LII !!!). There's also two toggle switches that are hardware switches on the siren control: turn on all the lights in the engine room, and enable a photocell door switch so the first person there can open the bay door by waving their hand without having to fumble for keys.

The outputs are all relay contact closures: one that triggers the roof siren relay; one that sounds a buzzer in the engine room; one that turns on the engine room lights; and another that activates that door switch thingy.

So I want to build a mock-up board that has the Pi and its two i/o hats in the center. Below will be the five switches. On the top will be LED lights simulating the engine room lights; a single LED simulating the door switch; a 12v buzzer simulating the engine room buzzer; and a small 12v siren simulating the roof siren.

My first idea was to just use a piece of plywood, probably 18x18, and just screw everything on to that. But I'm thinking there's got to be something better. Basically because I can't find any plug-in switch bases- something I can screw down, connect the wires to terminals on the base, and plug whatever switch into it. I've used bases like that a lot with relays, and figured there'd be something for switches also, but so far no dice.

Just to give some more detail: the one function I'll be adding is a key fob remote to trigger the engine room lights. The way it's set up is the lights turn on for a set interval (currently 20 minutes). If a call runs longer than that, then (if it's night, duh) someone has to go to the back of the engine room to turn the lights on. But with this we'll have a key fob in the radio room up front, and we can also carry one in each truck, and trigger that 20-minute on cycle remotely. So that's what that extra $100 is for.

For the tech nerds, I'll be doing it all in Python, using and I²C relay board for the outputs, and GPIO for the inputs, leveraging RPi.GPIO interrupt handling to watch for inputs. I haven't nailed down the code structure yet- maybe just one big batch of code, or possibly a different process for each of the input and output functions using mmap shared memory for the different modules to communicate actions between themselves.

After all that's done i'll nap in my sofa bed

wait now i just read the write-up i did 3 years ago when we replaced the PLC with the newer model and we had to re-do some of the wiring

looks like 3 of the 4 manual switches bypass the PLC entirely and just send voltage directly to the output relays, so that's a bunch less coding to do

putting all of my life notes into OneNote is one of the best organizing decisions i ever made

is there any good dustbuster out there

Bucky wrote:is there any good dustbuster out there

https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id= ... 1&format=2

their branded stuff always flies under the radar, especially A/V, but always good price, good quality.

Bucky wrote:is there any good dustbuster out there

Dyson animal is a bit pricey but it's great

I don't see an Animal in a handheld, only a stick. Is that the same as the D7?

Az, that's an air fryer!!

click on the product info. handheld as well

aha, so confusing, thanks

Uncle Milty wrote:That doesn't count as a dustbuster!

Well it's closer to a dustbuster than an air fryer

Will it core a apple?

mickbayne wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:That doesn't count as a dustbuster!

Well it's closer to a dustbuster than an air fryer

that's awesome, don't know how or where both the hand held vac and link went. air fryer > dustbuster in the grand scheme of things tho, bucky.

JFLNYC wrote:Will it core a apple?

No, but it will core a nutty.