Backplane, Back In

Never underestimate the power of the internet.  A short while ago some kind anonymous soul (thank you!) noticed my write-up and some of the issues I had with the Chenbro case (specifically, the SATA hot-swap backplane).  They let the manufacturer know, and Chenbro tech support posted a comment with a possible fix.
Their fix was to solder pin 11 to either pin 10 or pin 12 on the connectors to disable the staggered spin-up.  Since my soldering iron is kinda chunky, and I didn't really want to do anything permanent to the boards in case this wasn't actually going to result in a fix, I busted out my multimeter and looked for alternatives.
Each board has two drive connectors...  one of the pins for one of the connectors traces out to a jumper, but my luck ran out there -- the other traces out and terminates at some teensy-tiny little fleck of metal that would be just as hard to solder to.  Strike one.
I tried Arctic Silver...   which, as it turns out, doesn't conduct.  Strike two.
Next I tried a loop of wire... and that seemed like it might work, but the positioning was tricky.  In the end I used a piece of stripped conductor from a cat-5 cable (nice and thin gauge), bent it into a "U" shape, and pushed through the gap between the connector and the board, then twisted it together -- effectively grounding pin 11 to pin 12.   I made sure to test that pins 14 & 9 weren't grounded, and that 10, 11, and 12 all were grounded.

I'll leave out all of the wrestling I did with the case here, but I will point out that prior to shoe-horning those two boards back into place, you should make triple sure that those little wire loops are firmly in place and that those pins will remain grounded no matter how much the board shakes.
I also ran into a problem where the drives would get power (green) but not data lights (blue).  After a more testing, I narrowed the issue down to the fact that the back-plane boards seemed to flex just enough that my drives weren't seating all the way.  I jammed a couple pieces of wood between the boards & the metal plate that carries them to reduce the flex and that seemed to help.
End result -- WOOT!  All four of my drives are online, hot-swappable, and my ZFS pools are still rockin' away.

Pork Loin, Served by Proxy

If anything could peg the Meter-o-Machismo and firmly cement myself in the top Alpha Geek ranks, this would be it...

I want to internet enable my bar-b-que.

The backstory, like all of my stories, is fairly long and complex so we'll suffice it to say that I have wanted to undertake a project such as this for quite some time. After my most recent technical project (the storage server, covered earlier in the blog), I find myself still "jonesing" to do some hybrid creative/technical work. And since my Traeger (best. food. ever.) needs torn apart to fix the auger, I figured it would be a good time to muck about in its electronic innards.

My initial requirements:

• After all modifications it must still function as a smoker/bbq.
• The BBQ will interface with my network via a wireless signal (802.11 b/g).
• The user should be able to set a temperature (in degrees Fahrenheit) via the control panel.
• The temperature control may also be set securely via the network.
• BBQ will monitor one or two temperature probes (one for BBQ temp, one for food temp) and attempt to maintain the set temperature.
• Statistics (temperature settings, temperature measurement history) will be available via the network (and potentially the internet)
• [Optional] Cooking "profiles" (ideal temperature curves over time) may be loaded and run.

Here are some of the components I'm looking at using (not necessarily any or all of them will make the final "cut"):
Processor:
Right now I'm torn between the Arduino or the Propeller. Both have their pros & cons.

Wireless Interface: the Matchport Pro b/g wireless embedded device server -- this thing is pretty cool. It's basically a secure web-server combined with a wireless radio chipset. I should be able to interface to this with whatever processor I choose.

I had been looking at just using a Gumstix system with a wi-fi add-on card, but putting together a system that would do what I wanted seemed to be a bit on the spendy side.

I obviously have a lot more thinking and planning to do, but if I do end up going ahead with this project I will of course let everyone know how it went.