Fred

I finally got my NFC implant err... implanted. I'm very happy with it. You'll find full details here but if you just want the gory details...

The logic analyser versions are the DS1052D/DS1102D. I initially got quite excited about these but then decided against it. The DS1052E was the go-to low end scope due to price and hackability, but I think this title now falls to the DS1074Z which I went for in the end. It has lower performance that the DS2000 series but I figured that 4 channels would be more useful to me that pure high end bandwidth. Your requirements may differ. (The DS1074Z is also "unofficially upgradable" to 100MHz and with SPI/I2C/UART signal decoding, etc.) I'd love to give you a detailed opinion but I've been real

Welcome back. Or at least, welcome half back. Once you have kids you never have as much free time as you once did. These days if I need to spend an hour on something to finish it, it can take a week before I can find that hour. (It's worth it though.)

I've already got a Samsung Ezon lock (PIN or NFC) on my workshop. I'm sure I'll add/make more for the front door, motorbike, etc. I'd also like to auto log in to my PC at work. I was thinking of something like USB HID to type the password and write-only mass storage to set it. Maybe embed it in a keyboard.

Well, when the Terminator turns up and someone has to go through that time portal thing with plans for John Connor embedded under their skin, you and my wife will change your tune. Unless the plans are more than 888 bytes. Then we're all done for. Whilst it's really similar to a pet tag I don't think a vet would want to risk losing their vet licence by operating on a person. A piercer seems to be the way. I have one that's been recommended but they're closed today.

Yesterday my NFC implant turned up. Still looking for someone to implant it for me. It's tricky to do yourself as you need two hands (and it goes in your hand). My wife's a doctor but refuses to do it as "it's weird, geeky and creepy".

It does look like a nice and original project. However, I have to ask how the path can be both preprogrammed and random.

I think the white PCB is a F5529 USB Experimenter board which was around before the F5529 Launchpad. http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430f5529 What I was wondering is how rotating the plant gives it more light. Also, whether you do anything to regulate temperature or moisture.

I see your write up on Instructables got featured, and you made it onto Hackaday!

The last time I tried installing CCS into an existing Eclipse instance it had to be a out of date (3.x) 32 bit version. I just went with the integrated installation. At least this time it's 4.3, but is it still limited to 32-bit?

Git integration may just be enough to make me to go for it. Unfortunately my full CCS licence (from a Piccolo control stick deal) only covers V5, so I'll need to keep that around too. I don't tend to do much stuff over the free limit anyway.

@@dubnet That's exactly what I was thinking.

@@RobG Perfect. Thank you. I think my guesses were right, but I'm sure that'll be helpful for anyone else using the board. By the way, the nanopad was the perfect candidate for testing whether my toaster oven would reflow (under manual control) and whether components on the underside would stay on when reflowing the top. A success on both.

I started populating a nonopad but one thing I couldn't work out was what J1-J7 correspond to - i.e. I know they're for regulator bypass, enabling LEDs, etc. but which one is which? They're not labelled on the schematic. I could probably work it out eventually from the board files, but most of them route via vias and are difficult to follow. Probably good to list them on the wiki.

@@tingo Sad though it is to take a day off from C# coding to do some C coding, I decided that using a day's annual leave was worth it. I don't expect to learn anything that I couldn't find out myself but it just sounded like fun.

SPY-BI-TAG adapters too. Awesome! I'm definitely still interested. I'm in the middle of a board design at the moment and hope to etch this weekend, so I'll add a TagConnect footprint. It's not a particularly cramped board (and likely to get a revision anyway) so I might leave the pin headers on too just in case I screw something up. @@dpharris I think for SBW there isn't much point deviating from what TagConnect have done. 6 pins will do and it would seem counter-productive to go with a different pin out to to the one that the kit above gives you. Spirilis seems to have sensibly gone w

I've signed up for one of the L0 workshops that they're doing in Europe. If anyone else happens to be at the Crawley UK one then say hello! http://www.st.com/web/en/seminar/Ultra_low_power_Microcontroller_workshop

I'd still use nylon machine screws just in case.

I thought of your clock when I saw that Neopixel ring. Perfect if someone wants to make a smaller simpler clock along the same lines as yours.

Thanks. I know that things sent via USPS can take a while to get to the UK, but if nobody's got them then that's probably not it.

I'm just adding some pin headers to my current project. Did anything ever happened about these?

I had a second one in December and that was tough enough. Twins must be really hard work. Welcome back.

It's not often that we get dragged way off topic, but bringing up Java seems to have done it! I particularly liked this little blog post on Java. I think it sums it up nicely. http://blog.plover.com/prog/Java.html

@@spirilis I like the way you start with "I think the gist of it is..." and then go on to give a very informative answer that covers every little detail clearly and in depth.

I'm a C# and Java developer by trade, and I would still say "Java sux"! I know it's possible to code some ARM microcontrollers on Java, but not tried it myself. I don't think it's possible on the MSP430.