Someone donated an old Set Top Box (STB) to Tokyo HackerSpace. No one seemed to want to do anything with it, and it just sat there for a couple of weeks. So, I decided to open it up to see whats what. It turns out the mini ITX board contained within is fairly standard (if a bit old and slow). I thought it would be perfect for a data collector.
- Original Specifications:
- Model TD500M
- Manufactured by Celrun Co. Ltd
- Reseller ZenTcom
- 16MB x 16 bit NAND flash SSD
- 128MB DDR DIM RAM
- CPU: VIA Nehemiah 1197Mhz 32-bit
- S-video output, VGA output on an unmounted connector
- AC97 compatable Audio Controller, dual RCA jack output
- 2 x external USB, 2 x internal USB
- USB 0-2 @ v1.1, USB 3 @ v2.0
- 100MB ethernet jack (VT6102)
- Paralell port (unmounted)
- 2 x internal USB
- V20 modem connector (internal)
- RS232 connector (internal)
- I2C connector (internal)
- PS2 Keyboard and mouse (unmounted jacks)
- 2 x ISA
- 2 x floppy disk
- 2 x IDE
- Phoenix BIOS D886 password protected
- IR receiver and remote control (specs still unknown)
- Data Sink requirements
- XBee to USB (serial emulation) adaptor based on the common FTDI chip
- accept data via XBee and log it to a MySQL data base
- Each reporting device reports an ID, followed by a specified series of data points
- SQL should hold a configuration table defining the reporting devices
- SQL should create a table per device
- Webserver interface
- Should be have the following views: hour / day / week / month / year
- Would be nice to have something like "This week last year" going back the entire history of recording
- Datapoint graphing would be nice
- Dump selected data to CSV
- A "local mode" minimal control panel using the VGA/Svideo output and remote control would be a nice feature
- Planned hacks
- Replace hard drive with CF or SD card adaptor and removable disks
- multiple os / configurations by swapping SD cards
- Mount VGA jack to enable output to standard monitor
- Attempt to gain access to IR receiver
- Attempt to break the password protection on the BIOS chip
- Attempt access to I2C connector