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Static Electricity Fries Garage Door Opener; Faraday Cage Protects?

coffeefilter — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:22:12 -0800

(Electronics) Is Static Electricity frying my garage door opener, and can a partial Faraday Cage protect it? In the winter, it is very cold and very dry. Very. Lots of static electricity.

I keep the garage door remote control opener in my jacket chest pocket. It lives there through the winter. To operate the opener, I don't take it out of the jacket pocket; I just press the button through the cloth. The jacket is some kind of synthetic. It crackles with static discharge when I take it off.

(1) Is static electricity harming the remote control? I've gone through a couple. (Alternate culprits might be extreme heat/cold cycles, getting tossed around, low-quality electronics, etc.)

(2) If so, would a partial Faraday cage, e.g., aluminum foil wrapped around most of the opener, protect it? (wrapping it completely blocks the signal that opens the garage door)

How to best protect electrical equipment in a underground utility room?

colecovizion — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:26:34 -0800

How to best protect electrical equipment in a underground utility room? There is a small utility room underneath the house. It can get slightly damp, dusty and cold. Nothing too extreme.

I would like recommendations for protecting my electrical equipment in this area. I don't have much, just a small UPS, modem, 16port switch, and router. All equipment is on a shelf that is 4 feet off of the floor.

I'm thinking of a box or cover that is both antistatic and waterproof. Is this the right logic? I don't need industrial grade, just something basic. Links to stores online would be a big help!

Tunneling audio over TCP/IP

spaceman_spiff — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:35:25 -0800

How can I play audio from one computer through another computer's sound card? At home, I have a server running Debian, which usually has a medium-range wireless headset plugged into it. My time is split between that and a Powerbook running OS X. Which one I use depends on the activity at hand - I use the Debian machine for gaming and music, while the Powerbook tends to get used while I'm online or watching web video.

I was very happy to find mocp, letting me control my music from the Powerbook, but I'd like to make it more general. Ideally, I'd be able to leave the headset's transmitter plugged into the server all the time, but have it play the audio generated by random applications on my Powerbook.

So is there a way to have my Powerbook send audio to esd or alsa on the Debian box? A sort of remote soundcard, I guess. I'm comfortable fiddling with SSH tunneling and config files, but I don't really know anything about how ALSA works (or OS X audio, for that matter).