Hardware on

Introducing ml1610-blaster - how you get a Samsung ML-1610 to work on macOS 10.13

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 14:32:43 +0000

The highly retro monochrome laser printer, Samsung ML-1610, continues to work just fine on macOS 10.13 High Sierra. However, getting driver support took me a long time to figure out a while ago. I got something worked out for macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and posted about it here.

To my great surprise, my old post on getting this going has become the most popular, heavily visited post on dawning.ca. So… I’ve revised things and spun this in to what I’m calling “ml1610-blaster”. There’s a github repo hosting it, here: ml1610-blaster.git

Dear Diary: Samsung ML-1610 on macOS 10.12 Sierra

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 08:25:20 +0000

New Version

A newer version is here. I now call this ml1610-blaster.

I have a trusty Samsung ML-1610 printer that I think I bought for like $90 back around 2003. It’s been an outstanding little cheapie that so far has seen me through two undergrad programs and is now seeing my wife through her third such program. Overall, it’s unremarkable, but I like it enough to keep it going.

MacBook Pro Corpse Reanimations

Sun, 22 Jan 2017 21:32:10 +0000

My Macintosh-hording neurosis project has equipped me with various (mostly) 2008-vintage MacBooks. I’m a particular sucker for the 17" ones. Two of them I paid $20 for, the other two were $34 and $50. Each one of them was sold for scrap as they were tested & reported as totally non-functional.

I tend to take warnings for dares.

Most actually worked fine with nearly zero effort. One needed its RAM reseated. But two of them were really dead, that is to say, I could not get them to POST. As a person who builds the odd thing, when I look at a “broken” device, I think to myself: If I were gonna make one of those from scratch, this one’s like 99% done as-is.

USB 3.0 on 17" MacBook Pro under El Capitan

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 23:45:09 +0000

I had added USB 3.0 functionality (via a GMYLE BC628) to my Late 2011 17" MBP as per my earlier post. Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan introduced a new layer of security that prevented my previous configuration from working.

Fortunately, others have figured out a road back.

Here are the steps: Backup everything and assume you’re about to trash your system. I am not responsible for what happens here. Boot in to your recovery partition, or on to a USB installer Execute:sudo csrutil disable kext. This disables kext signing. Boot back to your native system. (Note USB-booted environments probably don’t need the sudo component.) Download GenericUSBXHCI.kext to your Desktop Run KextBeast, install to /Library/Extensions Reboot Profit!

Cupcake155 Episode 4

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 15:52:05 +0000

Cupcake155 has been endowed with a sweet lighting system. I built it in an open way, so others can re-trace my steps without having to start from zero. It’s actually a pretty sweet system, I call it Illuminatrix.

Check out Cupcake155 episode 4 here.

Cupcake155 Episode 2

Sat, 14 Feb 2015 01:53:28 +0000

After roughly a month of effort, I’ve now got my old Cupcake heavily retro-fitted and running pretty well.

Cupcake155 Episode 2 gives the key details of how I modified my old MakerBot Cupcake in to something modern and unique. Others may find it helpful to re-trace my steps and perhaps get printing sooner!

Cupcake155 Episode 1

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 10:24:26 +0000

I’ve missed playing with 3D printing since I mothballed my printer years ago. It was shelved over major pains in getting the extruder to work properly. I also wasn’t especially fond of working with ABS plastic, which feels pretty toxic to me.

A few weeks back I decided that my old printer, while in bad shape, was still most of a 3D-printer. I had been looking at ready-made products I could potentially buy, but I wanted the satisfaction of doing most of it for myself. I knew right-off-the-bat that I’d be replacing the extruder as it seems clear to me vast progress has been made about that point.

MacPro3,1 gets USB 3.0 support

Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:03:31 +0000

In my quest to keep my 2008 era Mac Pro (MacPro3,1) reasonably well suited to my needs, I recently decided to attempt to add USB 3.0 support.

I recently bought myself one of these babies, Inateck KT4004. I like that it has 4 ports and no external power required.

The Amazon page claimed this card is for the Mac Pro. I wasn’t sure if there would be weird driver issues and bought it with a little hesitation. I�installed it in about 2mins and upon booting I could immediately see it available:

Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:40:36 +0000

I went to a Protospace talk recently where I listened to a wonderful 4 hour talk about Thorium based reactors. Suffice to say it was time wonderfully well spent. I’m so energized and psyched. I’ve really liked Nuclear power in the past, but that’s given way to this even better alternative. Seems a great deal safer and just all round “better” in every dimension.

Here’s an early video from the talk. A buddy is working on a refined version combining multiple angles (some of which I filmed).

Throwing Down an LED where the Potential is great

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:15:14 +0000

I saw this post on Instructables where someone asked how they could add an LED on to a high-voltage source. And for reasons I can’t explain, I just felt compelled to take a crack at it…

On the surface it’s a pretty boring/simple question. But on the other, as much as I’ve answered this question for myself several times, I thought I’d provide my approach for the world to judge. Supposedly I’ve learned how to do this (and a lot more) in school, but it seems to me like the basics like this are worthy of most of the attention.

The Air is on fire! Shaw Gigabit Fibre Internet FTW!

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:09:54 +0000

Exhibit A:

Exhibit 2: Damn, seriously.

Shaw Gigabit Fibre Internet doesn’t bother Transmitting Data, it TELEPORTS it!

Here I sit in my bed @ my parent’s place on Christmas Eve. I decided to test out their new internet connection & router by enjoying another kind of “Eve”, Eve Online.

The Air is on fire, but in the good way

About the same time as this new internet service was hooked up I randomly decided to upgrade my parents to use Wireless N (with a repeater rig, a la Airport Extreme & Airport Express).

Kobo - Unboxed & Linux Friendly

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:41:46 +0000

I’ve recently acquired myself a Kobo eReader. Read on to learn of my initial experiences, thoughts and reactions..

For those who remain unaware of what an ereader is…

They are little device designed to replace physical books. The key to success of the major ereaders (of which the ipad is NOT included) is the use of a completely distinct display technology called E-Ink. The important detail about that is that things displayed on E-Ink look just as though they were printed on paper. Compare this to viewing a typical LCD screen (like that of your phone) in the bright sun. The LCD has to overcome the ambient light, which is really tough in the day. The sharp contrast in brightness is similarly tiring for eyes in good lighting. E-Ink is free of that burden.

iPad FTW?

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:10:27 +0000

iPad Promo Images

Yesterday Apple introduced their massively anticipated iPad tablet device. For those who haven’t yet heard about it, it’s basically a hudge iPhone (that doesn’t make phone calls). The iPad is meant to unlock a “new” market segment for small computing devices that is somehow not already met by the iPhone and netbooks.

What does it do, anything new?

The iPad doesn’t bring new functionality to the computing world, but it does consolidate and simplify use particularly of eBooks. There have long since been many very cool eBook readers out there built around providing simple means for people to read electronic books.

Retro Lamp goes HypnoOrb

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:40:17 +0000

Candice saved this hideous old lamp from a bulldozer (literally) and for the last year and a bit we’ve had it hanging up in our basement for extra ambient lighting. The light was setup only to be turned off/on by pulling/placing the plug and that part’s so sketch that we rarely use the thing. So when it came time to replace a bulb, I decided to use a HypnoOrb instead of a more typical bulb. ** **

MakerBot Plastruder Crash

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:40:41 +0000

While trying to print something on my MakerBot last night, I had an awesome fail where the heater barrel of the plastruder was ripped out. Upon continued reflection, I think this was the product of how I had the heater barrel interfaced with the insulator barrel and I think I know how to fix it without replacing parts. Check out the video below:

MakerBot Plastruder Modified For Slightly Enhanced Awesomeness

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:35:21 +0000

Hello world, so I’ve been working very hard at getting my most awesome MakerBot working. It’s been a patience invoking venture and also extremely educational. The MakerBot employs some rather brilliant little tricks that make it simple, strong and friggin cheap. It’s a great gadget to have, though it’s definitely NOT for those who want everything now and aren’t capable of taking their time to do the job correctly.

Meet My Mod

So, in trying to get my MakerBot rockin, I’ve had to debug some stuff in my assembly. The instructions given on assembly are outstanding considering how much stuff you need to do to build one. That said, they’re not flawlessly exhaustive either - and this isn’t yet an exact science. I found myself frustrated by the positioning of the circuit board (I’ll just call it a PCB for now) positioned on the thing that outputs the plastic (Plastruder/RepRap). As you can see in my included photos, I’ve moved the PCB off to the side and flipped it behind the Plastruder.

World, meet my first home-made circuit board

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:02:04 +0000

My very first PCB

Well, with the priceless aid of my dear friend HappyThawts, I’ve managed to produce my first home-made Printed Circuit Board!

How it went

There were a bunch of weird issues that came up in making it and thus it’s not all that ideal, though I could hack it to work. The main challenge was that my copper clad boards were actually covered with PhotoResist (for masking boards via UV). The process we used entailed working directly on a layer of Copper. Thankfully Happy realized that Acetone would probably send the PhotoResist on it’s merry way to aqueous exile in my trash-chemicals bucket. She was dead-on there.

Super Mouse Hack

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:46:05 +0000

I did this cool mouse mod where I put a wireless card inside of my mouse - I love it because the mouse looks exactly the same as before, except now it has wireless functionality!!! This hack got featured over on Hackaday.com!

Roll on over to the project page for this hack!

Some HypnoOrb Progress

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:53:19 +0000

While my latest round of HypnoOrb progress hasn’t yet resulted in another fully functional design, it’s a good step in that direction. I’ve been learning to make good use of Cadsoft’s free version of their PCB design tool called Eagle. At this point I’ve been kind of stuck on getting the path of the wires routed well. The free version of Eagle provides some routing features, but I’m told it’s best to go with some other tools, tools that I’m pretty sure cost the GDP of a small nation, or possibly continent. But fear not, this is a fairly simple board, so I think worst case I should be able to manually route it in a very awesome way…. I hope. Anyway, below’s an image of the latest layout I’ve got…

HypnoOrb Prototype MK2

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:32:28 +0000

Arduino Independence

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:08:43 +0000

Getting the Arduino Processor to function on a breadboard

The next step in my HypnoOrb project is to figure out how to get the Arduino microprocessor (AKA ATMega168) that makes the whole thing work function with as little hardware as possible. Thanks to this awesome site, I found, I now know what I wasn’t doing right before finding that document. I hope making a reference to that helpful tutorial here will help others find it faster than I did. Have fun!

Behold: The Flash Rat

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:00:39 +0000

Here’s a USB Flash drive I created - really just hacked the guts out of a flash drive, soldered on an LED & wires and jammed it in the guts of this ugly stuffed rat I had.

Plexi-Glass based displayed video game brainstorm

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:05:34 +0000

Howdy world, so I wanted to share this idea I have about a fun little project that I’m considering involving using little sheets of etched plexi-glass, LEDs, some random switches and some kind of controller (like ATMega168/Arduino) to create a cheap crude super bizarre little game system. Not sure what the game could be, but here’s a video of a little brainstorm. My main inspiration came from here. This also helped give me some good thoughts that led to this.

World, meet the HypnoOrb

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:44:35 +0000

Using the toys I’ve been enjoying ever so much lately, I’ve managed to really nicely smooth out the programming in my Arduino for my RGB LED. It’s so awesome that I’m given it a name! Meet the HypnoOrb!

At this point I only have the raw prototype, but I’m considering going ahead an making more of them. I have to work out pricing and smooth of some aspects of the design. If you’re interested in getting one, please contact me or post a message here - the more interest I see on this thing, the faster I’ll work at finding an inexpensive means of producing them.

Goofin' Around with 7-Segment Displays & my Arduino

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:09:09 +0000

I’ve taken a few little steps forward towards my plans of building some cool stuff I’ve yet to announce. Yesterday I focused on testing out a tutorial I found on the Arduino website regarding driving multiple LEDs via chained shift registers. This setup is pretty cool as it only takes 3 pins off of the arduino (excluding power, which could be easily driven separately). I used the tutorial here to get the potentiometer going.