Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Create a RAID using one raspberry pi then transferring it to another

Build the array on a raspberry pi 1 that is already running a raid (level 1) array
• connect two 2-TB drives via powered USB hub
• They appear as /dev/sdd and /dev/sde
• use fdisk to delete the pre-built partitions, create new partitions using defaults that are for linux and fill each disk
• created array:
 mdadm --create /dev/md2 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Raspberry pi 2 and the case of the unreliable USB ports

My newly purchased raspberry pi 2 did not recognize external harddrives:
• There is a powered USB hub for the drives - same make & model as I use successfully for the pi version 1
• Same manufacturer for the drives, but they were 2 TB instead of 1 TB (each)
the command lsusb reported information, but it was regardless of whether the hub was plugged into the pi or individual drives were plugged in to the hub:
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
dmesg provided the most information - sometimes no message when plugging in the hub, sometimes limited message saying the hub had been found then disconnected (when it was still plugged in):

Sunday, March 8, 2015

A hilarious economics post

This post:
https://medium.com/@yichuanw/a-dynamic-theory-of-romantic-choice-6e275270da93

is about explaining why "all the single people are crazy" and "all the good ones are taken".  It is hilarious and mathematical.

It would be awesome to fit that model with data from OK Cupid...

Monday, March 2, 2015

Electric imp temperature sensors

After experiencing many burst pipes (in our baseboard heaters) I decided to build some temperature sensors.  My friend Phil recommended using the electric imp microcontroller and quickly found a tutorial on how to use it to make a temperature sensor:   https://plot.ly/electric-imp/tmp36-temperature-tutorial/

In the above the general concept & required components are spot on, but some of the specifics / details are off.  Here's what I did, which is the same in outline but differs in some specifics (which I hope are accurate).

Parts: