coffee
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Finally got around to spring cleaning since the weather is turning warmer. During the winter things get a bit cluttered in the shop. Spring Clean means that its time to get my hard drive dock off of my daily driver and onto a seperate computer.
I had been using a USB3 connection to the dock station which I really dont care for. Sure it worked ok but I much prefer eSATA. So, I had a dual core dell arrive at the shop that is to be replaced by a newer computer at a company. This will make a perfect clone station and all around drive maintenance computer. Therefore, I cleaned up the workbench and started sorting junk to be thrown out. Cleaned up the new clone computer and installed Linux Mint for the O/S. Then shoved on TV to access it from my daily driver.
I also had an old Toshiba laptop (single core!) come in as junk. I plan on pulling the webcam from it and installing it at the shop bench so I can record or just broadcast when Im at it for interested party's. This brings up a good note -
For laptops that you are scraping out make sure you pull the webcam in the screen area. Some of these also have a built in mic on the same board. Just take a USB cable and cut off the square end and splice it to the camera wires. This makes a great small cam that you can position anywhere and use it. The wiring diagrams are available online about anywhere. The color codes are standard pretty much too. Most of what I have done are just the camera and not included a microphone. So, Just have to do a bit more thinking on how that would wire up if you wanted to use it. Probably a separate cable would be needed.
I had been using a USB3 connection to the dock station which I really dont care for. Sure it worked ok but I much prefer eSATA. So, I had a dual core dell arrive at the shop that is to be replaced by a newer computer at a company. This will make a perfect clone station and all around drive maintenance computer. Therefore, I cleaned up the workbench and started sorting junk to be thrown out. Cleaned up the new clone computer and installed Linux Mint for the O/S. Then shoved on TV to access it from my daily driver.
I also had an old Toshiba laptop (single core!) come in as junk. I plan on pulling the webcam from it and installing it at the shop bench so I can record or just broadcast when Im at it for interested party's. This brings up a good note -
For laptops that you are scraping out make sure you pull the webcam in the screen area. Some of these also have a built in mic on the same board. Just take a USB cable and cut off the square end and splice it to the camera wires. This makes a great small cam that you can position anywhere and use it. The wiring diagrams are available online about anywhere. The color codes are standard pretty much too. Most of what I have done are just the camera and not included a microphone. So, Just have to do a bit more thinking on how that would wire up if you wanted to use it. Probably a separate cable would be needed.
