Episode: 1612
Title: HPR1612: Don't Forget the Referbs
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1612/hpr1612.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 05:48:56

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It's Tuesday 7th of October 2014.
This is an HBR episode 1612 entitled Don't Forget the Referbs.
It is hosted by Enibil and is about 20 minutes long.
Feedback can be sent to Enibil at gunmancunit.net or by leaving a comment on this episode.
The summary is Enibil talks about modifying a refurbished enobo and modifying it to his liking.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by an honest host.com.
At 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15, that's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at an honesthost.com.
Hello, this is Enibil and I thought I'd talk to everyone today about a recent refurbished
laptop I got, which I got partially for work.
Using my job, I need to service or work on or program PLCs, which are programmable logic controllers.
And some of these can be pretty old units in old dusty industrial areas, so I keep an
old laptop, I don't mind if it gets a little dinged or dirty, and sometimes it helps
having an older laptop, something like with a serial port, you know, older connections
to get into some of this older equipment.
I used to keep a Dell D410, which was a 12-inch square head.
I think it was a cellarion or something around there, you don't need much to service these,
but I don't want to bring my good laptops to an industrial setting or worry about someone
stealing them, or sometimes I just don't even want to explain what the heck all those
weird hackers stickers are on my good laptops.
So I just kind of keep a laptop around that if I need to take it to work, I can.
So the D410 died, the fan stopped, I opened it up, I greased the spindle, I put it back
together, it worked for a little while, and then at some point the fan stopped working,
and it cooked the video card.
So I'm sure that would be, it's down in the basement, it could be a headless box, but
it's no longer something I can take and use in the field.
So I started poking around to get another laptop of around similar age where I know I can
use it on different systems, I have the connections for them, and I found micro-center and new
egg had these, and there might be other places that have these, places that sell refurbished
laptops.
I found a Lenovo X61, now I've heard that Lenovers are pretty rugged and this might be good
for the settings I need to bring it into.
I didn't know until I got it home, that it's a 12 inch, it's maybe, it's under an inch thick.
I didn't know until I got it home that it's one of the ones where the whole screen can
turn around and flip down into a tablet, and then out of the side it is a wake-up stylus.
So that was a bonus, you can use it in the Gimp or you can do handwriting with it.
I didn't expect that part of it.
The other thing I needed was, I hate to say it, I need XP on it, so I'm going to dual
boot, but some of these old systems XP is all that's going to run with them.
Now I could do something with Linux or wine, or I'm sure I could, but in a pinch, when
I get called to go to this job, I can't spend three hours, oh, let me go get there software
and try and get it working with Linux, I hate to say it, but in a pinch like that, I just
need to get to the job, do something and come home.
So I've got to keep an XP partition on it.
Maybe I should explain a bit about what a PLC is in case anybody doesn't know.
It's a programmable logic controller.
So these are things that are used in any time you see any type of automation, like on TV
or in a factory, you know, let's say soda cans are coming down a conveyor and they're
going into a hopper and the soda's going in and the lid is going on and the label's
going on.
All being done with programmable logic controllers, they're sensing where the can is, they're sensing
the nozzle filling the soda, the weight of the can when it's full.
I suppose, well, I'll explain the last PLC I had to put in.
It was a big, like, hopper machine, like a six foot by 10 foot, big, giant drum, where
they would load product in, in this case they would load in feathers and like this kind
of little memory foam stuff, it kind of reminded me of, if anybody ever used a disposable
ear plug that foam that'll kind of go back to its shape.
Anyways, so what this machine needed to do was one operator needed to load this big giant
drum up and turn it on for a set period of time and it would rotate and blow air in there
and it would mix the product, you know, perfectly 50-50.
Then the operator needs to hit a handle or a switch, I put on a switch, you can only
go to one function at a time.
What that does is goes up to the PLC and asks three machines that are filling, like, they
might be filling pillows or mattresses or there are machines out there that are filling
product to be sent on to the sewers, so basically, basically making a pillow.
But the machines that are filling the pillows have hoppers and they need product in them
to go into the filling station, so as the hopper goes lower, I had to put a sensing ion
and if the product gets below this eye, it calls for the PLC to send more product.
Now they didn't want to put in three mixing machines and three motors to service the
three hoppers, so what we had to do was we got the one mixing machine, one motor and
I had to set up via the PLC, let's say hopper one calls for product, it has to open hopper
one's gate, which there was big like eight or ten inch tubing going over to each hopper.
Let me step back.
It had to turn on the blower and get ready and then open its own gate and it would fill
the hopper until a set period of time that we had to just time it to go up to the top
of the hopper, so I don't recall what it was, but it would have been 60 seconds.
After that time, it would shut off the motor and then shut its gate.
Now as the three hoppers call for product, they would all call to the PLC and let's say
hopper two needs product now, same thing.
Motor turns on, hopper two's gate opens up and it blows product into the hopper for set
period of time and closes.
The little tricky thing I had to get into was let's say hopper one's calling for product
and then hopper two calls for product and hopper three calls for product.
That motor can't handle sending product to all three hoppers at once.
So I had to set up a little sequence in the PLC to have them sit and wait in line.
And then also I didn't want to have when hopper one was done, it says, okay, I'm done,
you can shut my gate, you can turn off the motor.
But if there was another hopper waiting, I didn't want to shut the motor down and have
come all the way back up because that might restrict the flow of air and product and get
all stuffed up in the pipe.
So I had to put up a little, put a little hold circuit into the PLC as well.
So let's say hopper one's calling for product and then hopper two, while hopper one's filling
hopper two calls for product, hopper two has to wait for its product, hopper one finishes
but then there's a hold sequence that keeps the motor running and then open hopper two's
gate and then product goes into hopper two, hopper three and they just all sit there calling
for product when they need it.
And when the product is going out of the mixer, the guy hits a switch again, he can fill
it up.
So I guess you get the point that a PLC is just any time you see a modern system, there's
going to be a big box on the side of it and inside the big box is usually just a little
PLC.
I mean they used to be filled with rat trap relays and all kinds of logic relays and making
all kinds of noise but now, I mean I imagine a PLC is basically a glorified Arduino with
some line voltage relays in it so it's like an Arduino's logic but it can handle turning
on power and lights and motors and et cetera.
So this was the laptop I needed to find to replace the Dell D410, I've heard good things
of Lenovo and I heard they had good keyboards and rugged machines so I thought I'd try it.
The thing came and looked absolutely new, I don't know what was refurbished about it at
all.
The battery went up to full charge, I didn't see any scratches on it.
The only thing I noticed was a slight like smell like a WD40 smell and looking online,
it seems that some of these had problems with the exhaust fan just making noise so maybe
some company ordered 300 of these things and they got there and the executives didn't
like the noise and they sent all 300 back and just somebody squirted some spray into
them so this was the replacement rig I got for intending to, you know, whenever I need
to use it on a PLC I will but it ended up being a pretty handy rig.
I can't believe, oh I should say if anybody is looking at these, they do not have a track
pad that kind of threw me off so they just have that eraser head.
Amazingly I hated those things and I've actually gotten used to them now because where I ended
up using this is we have a sunroom and this has a matte screen, anything with a glossy
screen in the sunroom it just washes right out, you can't even look at it.
So I have a 13 inch Dell, what is that?
V131, I wouldn't recommend it, I don't like that machine.
One of the reasons I don't is it gets piping hot, if you have it on your lap it's just
completely uncomfortable during the summer.
So it turns out this Lenovo ran cooler, had the matte screen and I figured okay I'll
dual boot it and this can be the rig that I use out in the sunroom.
So that worked fine and actually sitting in like I sit in like a, just a single recliner
chair with an ottoman in the sunroom like watch TV or do whatever, actually with a computer
in your lap the eraser head makes sense because you know your point with your index finger
and then your thumb does the buttons and your pinky goes over and Lenovo has the up-down
arrow keys will scroll a page and then there's a forward back like in Firefox you can just
right there with your pinky go back a page.
So I ended up getting used to the keyboard, getting used to the eraser head.
What I didn't get used to out there with this is if it's in your lap or it was on the
ottoman with a cushion the speaker is on the bottom.
That wasn't working this thing does not get very loud and I like couldn't watch a video
I had to like prop it up on the TV remote and like almost lean down just to hear it.
So this was the first adventure here it's time to open this thing up and try and hack it.
So it turns out the speaker is kind of where a trackpad would be on a normal computer
or not a normal computer but a computer with a trackpad and it faces down.
So I took out the keyboard and then I took off the palm rest and I noticed the speaker
is just kind of in like an oval canister of its own two wires going in and it just kind
of sits in its own little housing.
So I just prided up and I realized you can turn this thing the other way around I have
it pointing facing up.
So then well you can see in the show notes I'll point to some pictures the next thing
within 10 minutes I was down on the drill press with the palm rest drilling a new speaker
grate that would face up.
I'm sure Lenovo's design team had it facing down so when someone spills a coffee or just
regular old crud it doesn't go right into the speaker and sit there but you know I want
this you know it's $170 refurb I might as well hack the thing to be exactly what I want
so I might my own little grill pattern I drilled it out put the whole thing back together
and it's perfect if it's in your lap if it's on the ottoman it's now loud enough to hear
a video.
The next thing that was bugging me about Lenovo's is they move the function and control they
have function all the way down on the left where I'm always used to having control and
I use like control F and Firefox to find things often control C and V for copy paste I just
automatically do that hey buddy for status net to send a dent there's a well we call it
a non-feature usability enhancement because Jesra hates features but he coded up this thing
that you have to hit control enter to send your dent because sometimes you know we'd be
typing away and you switch the size of keyboards you go from an E to a desktop back to an E
and you overshoot going for a quote and hit enter and you're sending you know weird three
word dense and things so control enter to send a dent is just natural to me now too so it
was driving me nuts on Lenovo so I started looking into what could be done about this seems
a lot of people complained over the years about this you know some people like it one way
and I suppose if you're a Lenovo user all right I think I heard someone say that this
was the Mac way but I don't know anything about Macs but if if you're used to a Lenovo I
suppose your finger goes right to the lower left for function but I didn't want to train my
brain every time I switch from this to the five other computers that all have control down
and lower left newer Lenovo's they have something in the BIOS a switch so you can swap function
and control but this one is old enough that it doesn't have that this is I think it's a
court to duo and it came with two gigs of RAM and I had another two sitting around so it's got
four gigs in it now that's nearly here nor there but I'm just saying in case anybody needs
a refurb and they're listening to this and they know these systems are out there it's turned
out to be a fairly decent rig so I poke around on the internet and I'll put this in the show notes
as well someone or a group of people have made alternative BIOS for Lenovo's and of course it's
used at your own risk and you know you're you might blow up your machine if you do this but I was
already into hacking this on this thing so let's you know what's one more step so I tried it I
flashed the BIOS it all worked good turned it on everything booted up I went into the BIOS there
was the setting to swap function and control try that everything works and I got a computer that I
was only expecting to use once in a while for work and it's a now a functional computer in the
house and it's doing everything I wanted to do the last step was what the heck I pulled out that
little awaken stylus with the little it's got a little nib nib tip in it and I stuck it under
the control button on the Lenovo and I just started prying and the key popped off so I popped off
the function key as well and I physically slapped those so there you have it it's just a little tale of
if you need an old one off system a refurb might be the way to go you can if you're running Linux
corduos fine with Linux I mean even something older it's it's gonna fly along two gigs four gigs
of ram you might be able to poke around on refurb sites and find a machine that with a little
hacking and a few tweaks here and there it'll it'll be exactly what you're looking for and save you
a ton of money you don't need the latest powerhouse laptops if you're running Linux oh one other
thing I should mention about Lenovo is XP is end of life and seemed that I need to use this with
PLC's that are most likely have a CD with XP that's a bit iffy but Lenovo's have a hardware switch
on the front so you can turn off the Wi-Fi so if I need to go into a job with this machine I can
turn off Wi-Fi don't plug in cat5 I'll load all the software here at home and I should be fairly
safe with it so I know I started this to talk about Lenovo's and I kind of got sidetracked with PLC's
but this is a podcast for anything hacker related and I think they probably are because next time
you see a factory process going on TV or you see some automation you might do like a little mental
thinking about how how is that line sorting 24 cans to go into a case or how is it looking at a
product and figuring out if it's right side up or upside down to put on a label so I say figuring
out how to automate things is hackery so okay so uh check out a reverb if you're so inclined
if your Linux user you don't really need a $1,200 brand new rig older rigs will run fine
so with some contact info there's always the comment section on HPR and I'm on status net
at sn.gunmonkinet.net and email is nybill at gunmonkinet.net see you later guys
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