Rearranged shop, building new card reader interface

 REARRANGING WORKSHOP

I bought additional folding tables in order to lay out and organize items in my shop - three 6 foot and two 5 foot tables. Once I had them in place I unpacked all my tools and began to arrange them on a couple of the tables. 

ASSEMBLING SHIELDS FOR NEW INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL INTERFACE

I bought two shields to use with the Arduino Mega 2560 controllers for my new design of an interface for the Documation readers. One will fit inside the card cage of my M1000 reader, thus has to minimize height. The other will attach to an existing cable that plugs into the rear of the M600 reader.

I chose a shield that can have the wires soldered on from underneath, between the shield and the Arduino, to allow the stack to slide into the card cage between the existing PCBs in slots 3 and 6. I assembled the headers and pins onto this shield and set it aside to begin wiring once I prove out the interface using the other machine.

I picked up a shield that has screw down wire terminals for all the pins on the Arduino Mega 2560, giving me ultimate convenience in attaching this and modifying it as I test things out. Too, I can reuse this shield in future projects if I wish. I spent a bit of time soldering on the screw terminals and the headers.

DOUBLE CHECKING POLARITY OF KEY SIGNALS

Looking at schematics and other documentation suggests that I have a mix of normal and inverted logic signals on the interface between the reader and my board. Specifically, it appears that only the 12 row data signals, the Index Marker, and the Pick Request signals are positive. The inverted ones include Ready, Busy, Error, Hopper Check, and Motion Check. 

Obviously my code for the controller has to handle these appropriately. In order to verify what is presented, I hooked up the external cable to the M600, set up a VOM, and was ready to begin probing the logic levels with the reader in various states to validate the polarity of each logic signal.

RUSHING AWAY TO DEAL WITH MINOR SNAG IN THE PLANNING FOR MY NEW HOME

I am closing the purchase of a condominium as my permanent home on this Wednesday. I had plans set up for delivery of various items of furniture, televisions, and possessions from both the rented home I am in now and the storage facility that has the remainder of my possessions I brought from California. 

As we talked with the homeowners association, we discovered that they have a quite reasonable requirement that movers provide a certificate of insurance that covers the common parts of the building from any damage that the movers might cause. This includes coverage for workmens compensation in case one of the works is injured during the move, as well as liability for damage to the property. 

My main move of possessions from the U-Haul storage facility into my condo involved using a small business that brought my gear to my workshop successfully. They would haul the four U-Box containers on special trailers to my condo, unpack outside and carry everything up using the building elevator. Unfortunately, this small operation does not have the level of insurance necessary to provide a $1M certificate of insurance. 

I had to arrange for a large scale moving company to unpack the U-Boxes at the U-Haul location, load their truck, make the short drive to my condo, then unpack their truck and bring everything up into my new home. I dashed home to make this happen today. Fortunately I could arrange this on short notice; I chose the company whose vans were outside my building all week removing the seller's possessions, since they clearly had the insurance necessary to satisfy the obligation. While it will cost me a few hundred dollars more, I still move in on the originally planned date and everyone is satisfied.