Well, I got the USB end of the Probe-O-Zap all built, and set up so's It Oughtta Work, and....
And, while the FT201X chip has been known to work with my office workstation, the lab Linux machine happily enumerates it but doesn't recognize it as a serial port.
Because the lab machine is running kernel 2.6.32 is why.
Because it's still on Debian Squeeze, as was the shiny new Stable version a couple years back.
And that old kernel had never heard of an FT201X, what with the part just having come out last year.
And so it's time for the ol' apt-get dist-upgrade, and chewing up vast amounts of bandwidth the next few hours.
In other Probe-O-Zap-related news, I've been pondering how to package that little board and its Mystery Component, and had pretty much settled on sticking it in a mold and pouring in brightly-colored polyurethane potting compound. Hmmm, the mold could perhaps be made of Teflon, with a nice slick hole bored in it. Lessee, it needs a 1/2"-ish cylindrical-ish section, then a tapered step down, then a 10mm-ish bit. Be nice if the cylindrical stretch, being a couple inches long, had a bit of a draft angle. Now, where might I obtain a suitably-profiled reamer for the task, and what'll it cost to have it made? Aha! Inspiration strikes! The profile I'm looking for bears a striking resemblance to (digs out old reference book) a .375 Weatherby cartridge. So, all's I need is a possibly-stock chambering reamer!
(Brownells has one in stock for .375 H&H, but the shoulder diameter is too small. Unless I taper the PC board, which is plausible. Clymer doesn't seem to do .375 Weatherby. Oh, well: board, encapsulation, and caliber choice are all subject to further negotiation.)
Update: Midway turns out to sell .375 Weatherby reamers (with a 30-day lead time). Choice of slightly-undersized sizer-die reamer or exact-sized chamber finishing reamer. I assume either of these will cut Teflon. And, given that they're made for cutting tough grades of steel, probably last for a great many mold cavities in Teflon.
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