The wife got me some new tap handles for Christmas. They work great with the space available and the new monitor installed. One Fat Tire and one Boulevard Pale Ale. Perfect for the House of Husar pub.
Posts Tagged ‘pub’
New Tap Handles
Thursday, December 24th, 2009New Pint Tracker Screens
Sunday, December 13th, 2009Started to rework Pint Tracker tonight to fit the 1024×600 resolution of my 9” monitor I mounted to the taps. Pretty happy so far but I had a few ideas for future updates. For now here is what is happening.
For starters the beer leader board and the members leader board are getting an upgrade. Soon it will be displayed as a photo grid with beer totals showing in a sticker-type display. Much more visual that just the text display that is in the above screen shots.
Twitter It!Pint Tracker Monitor Updates
Monday, December 7th, 2009Tonight my USB extension cables came from MonoPrice. I was a little skeptical if they would work or not. If you did not know USB has a 16 foot range. If I wanted to mount a monitor by the tap I had to find a way to get way more than 16 feet away from my Mac Mini. The MonoPrice 33′ active USB cable had really good reviews so I ordered three of them. At a price of $10.20 each it is a steal. These could cost you $50 each at a place like Best Buy. But you can’t even find them any place. These are a monoprice brand not a third part brand.
There was a waiting list for them a few weeks ago so I signed up for their email notification. They sent me an email last week and I ordered three of them withing 30 minutes of getting the email. A few hours more and they were totally sold out. I will get into the setup in a few days when I get everything mounted correctly. Until then you will have to setting for a few iPhone photos.
I have to redesign the Pint Tracker UI now that I have this sweet little monitor. The new version will take up the entire screen unlike the photos above.
Twitter It!Future Pool Shark
Saturday, November 21st, 2009Ella has been taking a real interest in pool lately. It is about time someone starting using the pool table for something other than to take eBay photo on!
Geeking Out With Phidgets
Friday, October 16th, 2009One of the things that really got me excited at MAX this year was a presentation from Kevin Hoyt on JavaScript and Hardware Integration. This was something that I did not really know was possible until the presentation. My head started to swirl and a rush of projects filled my head of all the cool stuff I could do. I think I got a little dizzy.
Kevin has a few posts on this blog that will give you more detail on what is possible so make sure you swing over there and read a few posts. Start here to get a better idea of what all this is really about. Many of the projects he showed at MAX are detailed on his blog as well. Read SparkFun USB Weather Board and Phidgets RFID and JavaScript. After that maybe you will be as excited as I am to get started on a few Phidgets projects.
What are Phidgets?
Phidgets are a set of “plug and play” building blocks for low cost USB sensing and control from your PC. All the USB complexity is taken care of by our robust API. Applications can be developed quickly by programmers using their favorite language: C/C++, C#, Cocoa, Delphi, Flash AS3, Flex AS3, Java, LabVIEW, MATLAB, Max/MSP, MRS, Python, REALBasic, Visual Basic.NET, Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Basic for Applications, Visual Basic Script, and Visual C/C++/Borland.NET.
If your head is spinning with all the possibilities and you have goose bumps then welcome to the club. Let’s get started with what I have planned. For my first project that I am going to attempt something for my home pub better knows as The House of Husar.
Fireplace Phidget Project
For the first project I want to create a secret panel in my fireplace that opens by swiping an access card or fob in front of it. The secret panel will open to reveal my Mac Mini and external hard drives, router and cable modem, and xBox 360.
Adding the secret panel will clean up the look of the fireplace and hide all the gear. Currently on the mantel are a Mac Mini, Xbox 360 and The Dude Bobble-head. All the other gear I mentioned is behind the fireplace on a shelf I built into the back or the fireplace. Problem now is that I have to pull the fireplace out to reset the cable or plug stuff in. Here is a photo of the fireplace. The secret panel will be the area I have outlined in a red box.
If you have ever worked for a company that issues a fob to access the building then you are already familiar with Radio Frequency Identification Technology or RFID. You swipe the fob or access card and it identifies who are you, determines if you have access to the building or a particular room, and then tracks your access in a database somewhere. This is exactly what I want to do for the secret panel. Just to geek this out even further a web cam will take a photo of the person accessing the secret panel and save it to my server.
The system will track access back to a MySQL database telling me when and who accessed the secret panel. I will give my son a fob as well so he can get to the Xbox 360. The system will also send me an email when someone does swipe their fob. The tracking is not really necessary but it is prep for the second project I have in mind to trick out my beer tap setup. This first project will be a learning experience.
The project will be run from either a Flash, Flex or Air app. I have not determined which one just yet. Since I already have my Mac Mini for the entertainment system I don’t need another computer.
To get started I ordered a bunch of phidgets this week and they arrived today. Here is what I picked up.
Above is the RFID reader and a few fobs to try out.
Above is the servo motor and controller to open the secret panel. Also there are a few attachments to try.
Above is a the PhidgetInterfaceKit 8/8/8. This is the brains of the system that allows you to connect analog controllers. Also pictured are two magnetic sensors and magnets but these are for a third project that I want to build.
Everything is powered off of USB and will connect to my Mac Mini as I have mentioned. If you are interested in starting your own Phidgets project go to http://www.phidgets.com. I ordered all my gear from http://www.trossenrobotics.com/ because they are in Chicago and it is only a day for them to ship right to my door. If you are scratching your head and not sure what is going on here then read everything you can on Kevin Hoyt blog and it should start to make sense.
Only thing for me to do now is get busy building. Look for more updates over the next few weeks on my Phidgets adventure.
Twitter It!
