Junglebiscuit

Understanding the MCB and which way to wire it

First of all a disclaimer, if you don’t know what you are doing with electricity or are not sure then its always best to get an electrician to do the work or check the work for you before you turn it on as it can kill or injure you.

Now I am a qualified electronic engineer so know how to deal with things at component level but sometimes I have to dabble with electrical items too and am not so competent. For this task I had to install a small single pole type C Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB) as one of my projects and had a few problems at first understanding which way around to wire it as the manufacturers documentation didn’t say and the device had no indication on it except for a small symbol here:

*Chint 2A Type C MCB Operation Symbol Line and Load*

What does the electrical MBC symbol mean?

Now some of you electrician types are probably saying “ah thats easy, you are a fool if you don’t know what that means and shouldn’t even be touching electricity”. Well you may be right but the good news is that I worked it out and thought it worth sharing as the internet wasn’t too helpful on this. So the top bit is showing a little lever with an X – This is a switch, the big on/off blue thing you can see in the photo above. Great thats one part but what do the two bits below mean and then onto the important question, how do I wire it? Well the next item down shows a square/rectangle symbol, this is the symbol for a thermal device. So its detecting if there is too much curent and when there is it will get too hot and will do something. The final piece of the puzzle is the curve half-circle like symbol underneith, this is actually the symbol for the circuit breaker itself. So the image tells us a nice little story, when the switch is on, it will be letting current through to the thermal sensor and if too much current goes through it will produce heat which will cause that curve to fire away like a rocket which will break the circuit and flip the switch off.

How do I wire it? Which way around does it go? Is line 1 and load 2 or is it the other way around?

Well the MCB will trip if the current exceeds its limit whichever way around you wire it but saying that they do have a correct way around to wire in. There are a few holes on your MCB that will expel heat etc if there is a short circuit, if its wired the wrong way around these will not work when the circuit trips. On this particular circuit breaker which is a Chint 2A Type C MCB you need to have the line or supply going to 1 with the load on 2 I.e. the line going into the top and the load out the bottom. Why can’t they write that on the datasheet?

Here are some of the terms I typed into search to try to find an answer on this:

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How to Setup an Esp-32 in the Arduino IDE

Got youself a new ESP-32 development board and wondering how you talk to it? The good news is that someone has done a lot of the hard work required to set up ESP-32 support in the Arduino IDE. The first thing we need to do is add the board manager files so that settings and boards relating to ESP-32 show up in the Arduino IDE. Go to File -> Preferences then enter https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json into the “Additional Board Manager URLs” field:

Adding ESP-32 additional boards manager to Arduino IDE

Note: if you already have the ESP8266 boards URL, you can separate the URLs with a comma in the above.

Open boards manager. Go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager…

Search for ESP32 and press install button for the “ESP32 by Espressif Systems“ and hit install:

Installing ESP-32 Board In The Boards Manager

Select your Board in Tools > Board menu (in my case it’s the DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT V1)

Plug in the ESP-32 with USB cable to your computer.

Select the Port (if you don’t see the COM Port in your Arduino IDE) (tools->port).

Open the following example under File > Examples > WiFi (ESP32) > WiFi Scan

Testing Your ESP-32 By Opening the WIFI Scan Example Project

Press the Upload button in the Arduino IDE. Wait a few seconds while the code compiles and uploads to your board. When it says connecting…… press the boot button on the board and release. If that didn’t work hold the boot button before you press upload and release when it says connecting. I’ve even had some dev boards that need the enable button pressed instead, doing one of these will work, you just have to find which one.

ESP-32 In The IDE Waiting For Boot Button Press

If everything went as expected, you should see a “Done uploading.” message.

ESP-32 Done Uploading In The Arduino IDE

Finally just open the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor at a baud rate of 115200 and hey presto you should see it scaning for WIFI networks. You may need to press enable/reset button first:

Testing The ESP-32 Using WIFI Scan On The Serial Monitor

Rants – Wearing Slippers Outside?

I’m no expert on fashion, quite the opposite actually but recently I’ve seen a trend for some women wearing slippers outside. You know, the same footwear that has been designed for the opposite reason – being comfortable inside a house. Most of the ones I have witnessed seem to be a particular type and could be described as half sandal half slipper with the front of the slipper that goes over your toes covered by some kind of furry strip. I’m guessing they have a name but a google search for “slipper with furry bit on front” didn’t produce any names, just showed me images of even more absurd looking items. To me it looks like they have killed two chinchillas and glued them to their feet.

Now I have seen two types of people wearing these, one is the younger woman who apart from the slippers seems to be dressed to impress. Why would you spend all that time picking the right outfit, doing your hair and makeup only to ruin it by going out the door in ridiculous looking slippers? I’ve seen it too often for it to be a mistake “oh I just walked out the door and forgot I had slippers on my feet” so I’m pretty sure its intentional. The other type is the older, fatter more weathered type of woman who I’m guessing has seen the younger type wearing them and now thinks it’s the thing to do. The difference is they haven’t dressed to impress, they are wearing dirty looking clothing with stains down, haven’t done their hair, have makeup on like a clown mask and have a bad attitude to match their bad footwear choice. The latest one I saw pulled up at the supermarket parking in the family with children parking spaces even though they blatantly didn’t have a child then proceeded to waddle the short distance into the supermarket. All I could think was “why the devil are they wearing those slippers?”.

Step by Step Guide on How to flash the ESP-01

So, you have bought your ESP-01 and are not sure if its pre-flashed or you need to do something with it, you may just want to make sure you have the latest firmware anyway. The best bet is to open your favourite programming software and try the module. If it’s not working at all or behaving weirdly then the chances are that you need to flash a new version of the firmware onto it. This is something that’s relatively easy but only when you know how and if you type it in a search engine there are lots of websites out there trying to get you to use weird versions of the ESP firmware so you need to be careful. I’ll go through what hardware to use to flash it, where to get the firmware and where to get the tool to upload the firmware to the chip.

The good news is that the tools and firmware are all free on the Espressif website but even then it’s not completely clear what to get and even the documentation provided isn’t too clear on what to do for beginners so I will go through it all here.

What hardware do I need?

I put together a flashing circuit specially for this purpose and keep it set up on my breadboard so that it’s there when I need it. The two main odd looking items you will need are a USB-to-TTL converter so that you can plug in your USB port on your PC to upload the firmware and the ESP-01 has a weird pinout so I find its best to use an ESP-01 breakout board/adapter. Other than that, it’s just a couple of buttons and resistors. Here is the USB to TTL (sometimes called FTDI) converter I use, it’s a couple of pounds on your favourite electronics or auction site and has a 3.3v option which is ideal for the ESP-01 though there are plenty of other options out there:

Here is the schematic:

And finally, here is a picture of it all setup on the breadboard:

DON’T PLUG IT IN WITHOUT READING THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW FIRST

What tool do I need to download to flash the ESP?

To flash the ESP-01 you need the Espressif Flash Download Tool which you can download for free from their website in the support -> download -> tools section. Link here:

https://www.espressif.com/en/support/download/other-tools

Downloading the Espressif Flash Download Tool From the Website

It’s not just for ESP-01, works for others too as you can see. Download that to a folder of your choice and unzip that file. Next you need to download the firmware files you are going to flash.

What firmware do I need and where do I get it?

There are lots of different firmware versions out there and they all have different functionality, some fix bugs and some improve performance. Obviously, some may induce bugs and decrease performance too, so I try to go for a stable version rather than the absolute latest issue. The firmware files can be downloaded individually or as part of a software development kit, I normally go for the software development kit as it has all the files that work together. You can download these again from the Espressif website in the support -> download -> SDK & Demos section. Link here:

https://www.espressif.com/en/support/download/sdks-demos

Downloading the ESP-01 Firmware From the Espressif Website

All of the stable versions should be shown, you can see the latest at the time of writing is ESP8266 NONOS SDK V3.0.0. Simply hit download and save it to a location on your computer, if it redirects to a github page then scroll down to the bottom and download the source code .zip file from there. Unzip the file and now you have all the things you need to flash the chip. All of the binary files you need to flash are in there, you may need to navigate around the files to locate all the ones you need but you should be able to find the following:

blank.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\blank.bin
- Flash Address: 0xFB000
esp_init_data_default.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\esp_init_data_defaultv08.bin
- Flash Address: 0xFC000
blank.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\blank.bin
- Flash Address: 0x7E000
blank.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\blank.bin
- Flash Address: 0xFE000
boot_v1.6.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\boot_v1.6.bin
- Flash Address: 0x00000
user1.1024.new.2.bin
- Location: ESP8266_NONOS_SDK-3.0.0\bin\at\512+512\user1.1024.new.2.bin
- Flash Address: 0x01000

Flash the ESP-01!

Now you have done all the groundwork to flash this thing its time to put it all together and do the job, exciting times! Open up the Espressif Flash Download Tool, you should be able to open the file straight from the folder you downloaded without having to install anything and it will open something like this:

Opening up the Espressif ESP flash download tool

Click the top one for the ESP8266 Download Tool and it should open up this page:

Some of those may be blank and you may have different boxes ticked, don’t worry, I’ll run through what to tick.

Assign the binary files to the flash address as above.
Pick CrystalFreq as 26M from the dropdown
Click the SPI SPEED button 40MHz
Click the SPI MODE button QIO.
Click the FLASH SIZE radio button for 8Mbit.

So now it should look like this:

ESP8266 Download Tool Window Adding Binary Files

Ok now you are ready to plug in, when you plug the USB in you need to do the following to put the ESP into programming mode:

Hold down the reset switch (SWI 1)
Hold down the flash switch (SW 2)
Release the reset switch (SWI 1)
Release the flash switch (SWI 2)

Make sure you select the COM port you are using from the drop down and set the baud rate to 115200:

ESP8266 Download Tool Select COM port and baud rate

Now just press start and it will sync then download then finish the flash!

Runescape – How Does Lootshare Work and What Are Lootshare Points?

What is lootshare?

Lootshare is a way to split up drops for a team or friends chat. Its used a lot for masses (whether it be the friends chat or group system). To use lootshare, you need to be in the friends chat with lootshare enabled or group at all times. You can turn on lootshare by clicking on the little icon at the bottom right corner of the friends chat interface:

Lootshare icon Toggle

Lootshare will split drops between the players that have lootshare enabled. You will see in game messages such as “You have received: 63,166 Coins” or “Junglebiscuit has received: 1 Bones” for all drops a boss drops at a time. The player with the highest lootshare points (discussed below) will have the best chance for the drops. For the formal write up on the RS wiki, check out: https://runescape.wiki/w/LootShare

What are lootshare points?

Lootshare points, also called LSP or lootshare potential, is the background system that determines who gets drops in a lootshare group. Each person has a certain amount of points. No one is able to check or see how many points they have; this is why there is sometimes mystery behind people’s LSP as there’s no real way to ever know yours or anyone elses. Basically the higher your LSP, the higher chance you have at getting drops!

Lootshare points reset down to zero eventually. Jagex has confirmed that this is at 10% per day. So, if you don’t use, you lose it! If you are at 10m LSP and do not boss for a day, tomorrow you will only have 9m LSP, then the next day you’ll only have 8.1m LSP, then 7.29m, and so on. The same works with negative LSP going closer to 0 from the other side.

Pets are NOT effected by lootshare and are instead based on the top dpser or highest damage dealt by a single person. This person will be the one who gets a roll at the boss pet.

Another important note: you have to be within 16 squares of a boss for lootshare to work, same as normal drops, and you will not see or receive anything if you are too far away.

Here are some examples:

1. There is a 10 person mass. One person gets a 10m drop (say a Cywir wand or similar). The person who got the drop is lootshare picks up the drop and owns the 10m item. Everyone in the group, including the person who got the drop, now gets a split of the lootshare points. This is the item value divided by the amount of people with lootshare turned on (i.e. 10m/10=1m). Each person gets 1 million lootshare points, but the person who got the wand also loses 10m points to have a net of -9m lsp.

2. A 23 person AoD mass gets a Praesul Codex worth 493m. Each person gets 21.43m LSP points. The person who got the codex is now at -471.57m LSP.

3. A Vindicta mass is going on with 9 people. There is an uber rare drop of 1 dragon bone. Each person gains about 263 gp of LSP.

How To Fix CPU Fan Errors On Computer Startup

So, you have lots to do, you go to turn your PC on and before it even considers starting you are hit with an error:

“CPU Fan Error!”

The first thing to do is check the fan is ok and is plugged in correctly but if you have done that and it seems good then this can be an annoying problem to solve. On my computer I would restart a few times and then all of a sudden for what seems like no reason it would work and go straight through as if everything is normal.

That error alarm is normally triggered when the RPM of the fan goes below a set speed. Luckily that speed is configurable in the BIOS settings on most systems. So when the computer starts up press DEL or F1 or whatever button it is to get to the BIOS. Once there on my PC I could see the actual fan speed reported on the main page as below:

You can see above it is spinning at 581 RPM. To check and change the trigger limit I had to go to advanced settings then click on the “monitor” tab which then had a setting called “CPU Fan Speed Low Limit” which was set to 600 RPM.

There is the reason we are getting the error, my fans spinning at 581 and the low limit is 600. So I clicked the button and a drop down list appeared, simply select a lower value, I went for 500 RPM which solved the problem and meant my PC started fine every time.

New Tamper Proof Royal Mail Stamps Are a Nightmare For Collectors

Royal mail now issue lots of tamper proof stamps which is great for protecting their revenue and making sure people don’t re-use but how does it affect the stamp collector? Well the traditional methods of removing stamps from envelopes like steaming doesn’t work on the new Royal mail stamps. So what do we do with tamper proof Royal Mail stamps if you are a collector?

One option is to simply cut around it and leave it on the paper. Nobody likes doing that normally unless its a particularly interesting postmark or something.

A second option I have heard works well is using a label remover such as Ambersil Label remover, you spray it on and it unsticks/comes off pretty much straight away. There are other options too like Cramolin or Goo Gone but I’ve not tried these.

A final tip is to spray a light coating of WD40 on the back of the envelope where the stamp is located, the area becomes transparent then wait a couple of moments the stamp will peel off with ease.

Note, it is illegal to remove and re-use a postage stamp! This is information for people collecting used postage stamps.

Please do comment below if you have had luck with any other methods!