richfiles

Kerbalstuff says this is stuck on 0.90? Has this/will this be updated for 1.0.4? I'm building a Kerbal "Kommand Module" controller, but also run on a Mac. Also, are the attitude values and vector indicator values transmitted (aka, the navball data)? I have an FDAI (Flight Director/Attitude Indicator) that I REALLY want to connect to KSP. To use it, I'll need the roll, pitch, and yaw angle of the vessel relative to the orbited body, as well as the angle of the various vector indicators (maneuver node, target, prograde, normal, radial, etc). I don't know if it's better to math the "anti/retro" values in the arduinos, or just transmit everything over USB... It's already gonna be hard enough to generate a 400 Hz sine wave and 9 amplitude modulated copies of that wave to emulate the three synchro transmitters required to drive the FDAI hardware. I don't even know if an arduino CAN do that! It might be easier to have an arduino command 9 digital potentiometers, and feed it an externally generated 400 Hz sine wave. At least then it's not responsible for that too. I can just feed the outputs into 10 amplifiers to get the 115 volts, 400 Hz AC signals to drive my navball.

Considering the garage is unheated, a tiny little heater might not be a bad option. Doesn't need to be very many watts. You could even wire a mains voltage switch into your control panel to activate/deactivate it. You could have some ventilation fans as well, also commanded by switches on your panels. I'm actually planning on integrating the sliders for my display case lighting in my apartment into my command module control panel, which will be built into my desk. I mean... Why stop at controlling Kerbal Space Program alone. Let it run your heat, your lighting, etc!

Is it possible to easily mod this mod to swap the names of Plock and Eeloo... Or is that something well and truly buried in some hard to alter code or something? I'm fine with Eeloo being remodeled to be a better Pluto analog... I just feel if Eeloo is being kept as an outer planet, it deserves the position of outermost planet... Plock can be a moon in my game... I'm talking a mere name swap, basically. I want my Eeloo to still be my Pluto analog. If I instal this... I still want Eeloo to be my extreme destination.

9 out of 10 Kerbals agree that fudging is almost as good as actual fudge! The 10th skipped out of free fudge and is actually fudging moar boosters to a rocket right now.

She's real beaut, this one... That ball turns smooth as butter! OHCRAPOHCRAP!!! Neilmon, you're getting mighty close to gimbal lock... Oh wait... Kerbals DID get an extra gimbal for Khristmas! The reason a Kerbal Pilot can hold vectors and nodes and such, is the Scientists and Engineers ask what direction "Z" and "M" are. Jeb says "You're kidding, right?" That Raytheon "chip in a can" has a date code of 1974! This puppy is 5 years older than ME! This type of FDAI uses a 115 volt 400 Hz signal, driven through synchro control transformers (rotated by the gyro assembly). There are 9 synchro signal lines (3 per synchro/axis) as well as the base inverter reference signal going into it. My FDAI is an ARU-11A, from an Israeli F-4 Phantom simulator... Mil spec site says 3 axis, specifically "Three axes attitude indicator used to provide continuous pitch, roll and azimuth information". Funny, I used to BUILD synchros for both the US DoD and some weather tracking equipment suppliers at my old job! IF ONLY I STILL HAD SOME SYNCHROS!!! Elsewhere, I found the pinouts: "The heading, pitch and roll can be moved using synchros. Pin connections are: A=Ground, B=115 V- 400 Hz, F=Heading-x, G=Heading-y, H=Heading-z, J=Glide-slope-flag+, K=Glide-slope-flag-, P=rate-gyroscope-power-warning-flag+, R= rate-gyroscope-power-warning-flag-, S=glideslope-pointer+ , T=glideslope-pointer-, U=vert-ptr-flag+, V=vert-ptr-flag-, W=horiz-ptr-, X=horiz-ptr+, Y=vert-ptr-, Z=vert-prt+, a=pitch-x, b=pitch-y, c=pitch-z, d=roll-x, e=roll-y, f=roll-z, g=lighting (5 V), h=lighting (GND), C,D,E,L,M,N and j not used. Funny thing, I almost panicked and thought that I had bought a 2 axis unit by mistake, cause I couldn't see the yaw X, Y and Z in the pinout. Using heading as the label threw me WAY off! I eventually figured it out. The flag items are small solenoid like actuators that flip out warning flags on the unit. The pointers are basically analog meters. I do not know if they are voltmeters or ammeters. I have not yet determined this information. The lighting only requires 5 volts. A person could operate this two ways... Software emulation of the three synchros. You could use something like an arduino with 10 analog outputs (smoothed PWM, I guess) and processing to simulate the the 400 Hz reference sine wave needed, plus the amplitude multiplier for x, y, and z representative of the angular position of the rotor on a real synchro, and feed those into an amplifier that can drive the 115 volt outputs at the 400 Hz frequency... The other way is to buy three synchros, and mechanically pair them to some stepper or closed loop servo motors, and drive the motors using a more traditional motor control program to represent the three axes. Then all you need is a single 115 volt, 400 Hz inverter to supply the FDAI and synchro control transformers. Also... It is painted with a thick paint (I know... I've DONE THIS to products we made back at my old job)... Any trace of screws are well and thoroughly covered. I do want to pop it open at some point, but not if I risk damaging it in any way shape or form... So for now, I shall resist the urge, and just focus on getting it to work. i also gotta say, the pics don't do it justice... It really looks bigger in person. The visible portion of the ball, the aperture that it is exposed though, measures 3 inches in diameter (7.35 cm). That size quite literally doubles the width of the ball I have on screen! It's also QUITE visibly pleasant to look at. You don't EVER strain to see the numbers or markings. They are simply clear, and highly contrasting. I certainly still wanna see this project come to fruition. Not everyone can get their hands on one of these. Also, to an earlier post regarding tape gauges... If one were to go to a vinyl/screenprinting shop, I'd say price out a strip of vinyl from them, screen printed with the gauge. If you go with something on a clear base (not sure if you can do that or not), then you could make the tape wider than the display glass, and have an encoder strip on the side. That gets you your position feedback. To reset, roll to zero, detect index, and then count up and down as your values fluctuate.

My FDAI arrived in the mail on Thursday, literally MINUTES before I was leaving town to go to a robotics meet up that I have not been to for 5 YEARS... On a side note... another member... an Engineer named Bob... Hmm... Musta traded careers with Bill... He moved out of state 8 years ago, and has been half way across the USA since then... He was back in state for family stuff... and randomly decided to show up again, after 8 YEARS... at the same meeting I showed up to after 5! Talk about chance encounters... Anyway, I edited my synchro post earlier in this thread... He shared some interesting information with me. I may have been mistaken, and had been confusing some elements of synchro operation with resolver operation. What he told me suggests emulating synchros may actually be MUCH easier than previously anticipated... I need to only generate one 400 Hz sine wave, and then simply calculate 9 multipliers to that reference, and output the reference and the 9 derivative outputs... No phase shifting, just amplitude shifting... Nice... Anyway, I've not had time to do anything yet... but, you know... pics! Look at my ball, my ball is amazing! That ball turns smooth as butter! OHCRAPOHCRAP!!! Neilmon, you're getting mighty close to gimbal lock... Oh wait... Kerbals DID get an extra gimbal for Khristmas! The reason a Kerbal Pilot can hold vectors and nodes and such, is the Scientists and Engineers ask what direction "Z" and "M" are. Jeb says "You're kidding, right?" That Raytheon "chip in a can" has a date code of 1974! This puppy is 5 years older than ME! Anyway, I'll have a rotary switch that has several positions. I'll be able to select prograde, retrograde, normal, anti-normal, radial, anti-radial, node, anti-node, target, and anti-target, and that particular vector will then appear on the ball by way of the deflecting crosshairs. Might do two rotaries... one to select mode (grade, normal, radial, node, target), and a second switch for pro, and anti/retro. I have 3 flags on this unit that read OFF, LOC, and GS. maybe i can use LOC to indicate a target is LOCked? GS... It stands for glide slope. Any other ideas? I can tie the OFF to the inverter/amplifier that powers the unit. If that's not on, then OFF will be displayed, and my AC bus will have no voltage. The inputs show signal inputs for the glideslope pointer, which is the arrow not he left of the unit, right above the GS flag. That's an analog deflection meter, same as the two heading crosshairs. I'm considering using that one for *atmosphere. It's unobtrusive, and the divisions I think would work out well. Not sure if there is an input for the "fat T" shaped bit at the bottom, and that ball at the bottom, directly above the afore mentioned "T" is literally a fluid filled ball level. *I need the maneuver ΔV to display somewhere... I might use this for THAT purpose instead. Or I might just get another meter. Who knows...

My "B" Team consists of: Billy-Bobdan Kerman Alley Kerman Geofemone Kerman Geofemone... I also had a Wilsy and a Neilmon... Neilmon, I choose you! Neilmon used BOOSTER. It was super effective!

I can run it on my mother's Acer Windows tablet. It has an i5 processor, but even small rockets take the physics into the yellow. It is certainly playable though.

Digikey does do international shipping, so if you get yourself a good chunky order, you might be able to offset the cost. Either way, depending on what country you're in, you might have alternatives. I think I saw an Australian ebay listing, so using that as an example, Digikey charges a flat shipping charge of $34 AUD on all orders of less than $200 AUD. Free shipping is offered for all orders of $200 AUD and greater. It just depends on location and size of order. If you snag several items from them, that one 34 AUD charge might end up less that the cost of shipping several different things on ebay. Or not! YOu just have to do the math and find out what works best for you. Consider though, that it's often possible to search for parts there, and then pick out manufacturer part numbers, to see if they are available locally from a closer distributer.

http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?pv207=680&FV=fff40008%2Cfff801c0&k=hlmp+rectangle&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&stock=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=100 This is a selection of new LED bars. You can get them in a variety of colors and sizes. I filtered by what's in stock, and what's in a wide package. These are all 19x9 mm (approximately). THey have 8 LED elements inside, so you get a VERY uniform illumination. You can get them in red, green and yellow, and the red and green ones are the cheapest. There's also a good price break at >10 units. Red and green units, are about $20 USD for 10, and the Yellows are about $30 USD for ten. I actually salvage these from medical equipment and photocopiers very often... as annunciator style indicators, illuminating a block of text! I picked up a circuit board from a surplus store for $0.75 USD... LESS than a dollar... that has 4 1x4 LED and 3 1x2 LED half width LED bars. The ones I linked are 2x4 LED bars.

I like this idea a lot! Really do! As a side thought though... Maybe Mission Control could use it too. Every time you click a contract, you could initiate (or continue) a two way chat, as long as things are selected. A Kerbal "yes" or "no" played if you accept or reject a contract, that sort of thing. simple stuff, and limited beepy bits. Obviously, if you're clicking away at stuff, it'd make sense to just keep the conversation going, but no sudden cuts or kerbals talking over kerbals, etc. As for the Astronaut center... Maybe chatter only? No beeps at all, etc, kinda like the squawk boxes NASA used to have for families and such in the early days. No two way thing, just hearing how the mission is going, and maybe at a reduced volume (3/4 or half what the normal setting is)... you know, cause you can't interfere with the music! If there is a way to determine it in game... If you can detect if a death has occurred... No chatter at all in the Astronaut complex... NASA would shut off the squawk boxes in an emergency, and I would think the KSC would too... Time it out for at least 1-3 in game days, maybe even longer, like a week... Is the background music and the background noises separate assets... In such a scenario, I could imagine the sounds of Kerbals getting on with their daily activities, but maybe with the music turned off. Kinda morbid, but you know... If we're going for that feel of realism... ... Of course, if you made this, and he installed it, Danny2462 would have a perpetually silent Astronaut Center...

Reverse engineered. CRTs are really easy. LCDs can be hit or miss... Sometimes, they reduce costs by keeping it digital between the CCD encoder and the LCD. If that's the case, you won't find a composite signal, and would have to reverse engineer the entire digital protocol AND find the pinouts... Not easy unless you do actually find documentation. If you're lucky, it'll be a composite signal, just like the CRTs. composite LCD modules were used, but they became more scarce as the technology advanced. A combo camcorder, that has an LCD and a CRT viewfinder will likely use a composite LCD, since it already has to generate composite for the LCD. The process I go through for reverse engineering a CRT module, is as follows. Start by looking up your chips. Most modern ones have only a single chip, and right there, you can get a lot of your info. My chip's datasheet suggested in the app notes that the video signal needs to be AC coupled across a capacitor, and that prevents a continuity test. The board was also too dense to trace the wire traces. I'll get back to that. Only 3 wires are really ever relevant. Ground, Positive, and Composite video (Luminance, or "Y"). That signal is the same as the yellow wire on the back of most any standard definition video device. Usually... I'll come back to that too. You'll want to REALLY get started by determining your power connections. The chip datasheet can often help, but not always. If a regulator is in circuit, you will have to trace it out Ground is super easy though. do a continuity check between the negative lead (always marked) of an electrolytic capacitor and each pin of the connector. This finds your ground. If you have the chip datasheet, you can confirm this further by doing a continuity check between your newfound ground connector and a lead on the chip marked as ground. Next, look for the other lead of the capacitor, and see if it traces back to either a small semiconductor, or directly to the connector. if direct, or if the small semiconductor has one wire to the positive of the capacitor, one wire to the ground, and one wire to the connector, that will be your positive. To test, start with a current limited power supply and turn up your voltage, starting from about 3 volts. pause around 4.8 volts. Many newer models only require 4.8 volts to run, some use 5, some 9 and some very old ones take 12 volts. The idea is to start low, and see when the screen comes on. The chip datasheet, if you find it, can often help you determine the operating voltage. If the power connections go straight to the chip, then feed it what the datasheet says, or only what makes it come on... More, and you may burn it out. If you see distortion on the screen, and it was fine at a lower voltage, you probably went too high, and should kill power and go back to the lower voltage. Be VERY conservative with this... ASSUME it is a lower voltage device, and if it doesn't work, try higher. ALSO, note the current limited supply... well, if your current limited supply is actually indicating that it is limiting, that means there is a large power draw, and something is likely wired wrong, or the device is damaged. You shouldn't see much more than 200-300 mA on newer ones, and rarely over half an amp on bigger ones. Some older ones might draw a little more... but 200-300 mA is a good rule of thumb to start with. Finally, you need to find your video signal. Many viewfinders have indicator LEDs to show when you are recording, etc. Some have serial data lines for on screen displays. Some have horizontal or vertical sync signals that allow an external OSD chip to overlay text not he video signal before it reaches the CRT driver. Sometimes there is a microphone, or switches. You can ignore any wires that lead directly to such parts, if they are obvious. The video signal will be one of the easier things to find... scratch the unknown wires against ground, one at a time... You should see the screen flicker a little bit when you do that. If that doesn't do it, you can always just try feeding each wire a video signal. Mine was a Samsung unit. It had two connectors. One was for the mic, and I just removed it. The other had 7 wires. I found 2 grounds, one directly wired positive power connection, and 4 unknowns. Here's another tip... Video signals require a ground. They can share a ground with the entire circuit, but it you have two grounds on your connector, there is a highly likely chance the other ground is meant to be paired tot he video signal. Check an adjacent wire first. Sure enough, for mine, it was right next to the second ground! A few more things... First, if you REALLY have a hard time getting a good signal, you may need to add either a 75 ohm resistor in series with the signal, or tied between the signal and ground. not all these units have 75 ohm termination built in. Second, If the viewfinder was the type that reflected the video off a mirror, then without the mirror, the video will be backwards. You can fix this easily by flipping the horizontal deflection wires around. These are a pair of wires that go to a coil around the neck of the tube. There will be 4 wires. two for vertical,a dn 2 for horizontal. Fortunately, mine were marked. If not parked, you need to use an ohm meter to determine which wires are part of one coil. Wen you find one coil, swap it, and see if it was the horizontal. If it flips vertical, undo the change, and flip the other two. Do not cross the streams. Make sure the wires are front he same coil. If the wires, when removed front he circuit, do not conduct, they are from separate coils. So, that's the trick to these things. They are dirt cheap, if you can find a thrift store that doesn't over charge. Some thrift stores haven't figured out that the video tape based SD camcorder is SO BEYOND obsolete, thanks to smartphone cameras... I have a place still asking $20 for them... I've bought them for as little as $4. A camcorder is fun to take apart! Not to mention, if you get the OLD ones... as in the over the shoulder type, from the early 80s, you sometimes find very nice gear motors that you absolutely must send to me! Trust me, it's for a good cause, and also insect like robots! Now we need software that flips through a few frames stored in memory, like a little arduino gif. I hear there is a TV library, that absolutely violates all sanity on the poor little chips, and SOMEHOW makes it generate a somewhat usable video signal. Saw a japanese site that was doing 4 bit greyscale... More than enough for Gene and his coffee mug! I hope!

This page really covers a lot of the details of how to do it right. Have fun! http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/ Pretty impressive techniques there, huh?

I, for one, am in LOVE with that motorized throttle slider! You've inspired me to go the extra step and see if I can motorize that video effects board fader lever that I'm salvaging for my throttle. It would be curious if you could tie that motor to a control loop that would determine whether the throttle is changed by the lever first or if the value returned by the computer changed first. If the lever changed first, then it should alter the throttle by sending the new position's data to the computer. If the computer's value changed, then drive the motor on the lever to adjust the potentiometer value till it matches the value returned by the computer. I've heard PID is possible on an arduino, so It should be, theoretically, feasible. The benefit, is you don't just have the throttle that slams on and off, but actually finely adjusts itself to match the in game throttle... Unless that gets disabled when the game is reading the inputs... In which case, I typed most of this for nothing! I suppose though, that if you run MechJeb, then having the lever mirror the game's throttle value precisely would be very cool! Your motorized throttle is ridiculously awesome, and that IS worth typing about!

So... someone on another thread suggested using tiny viewfinder CRTs as a unique display option. Specifically, they suggested this little project as an aesthetic enhancement to any control panel: From Hackaday http://hackaday.com/2015/07/07/headphone-amp-features-a-tiny-crt/ That is one smexy little amplifier! So then... I have a few of these puppies laying around, so I decided to fire one up and send it a source signal. Here's my first camcorder viewfinder CRT powered up... There are no bounds to my random epic parts supplies! Check out this itty bitty screen! That is one itty bitty battlebot! I wanna say I have at least two or three of these screens laying around, but I'll have to dig up the other ones. I'm thinking of mimicking that waveform project that was shared with me, and displaying the game audio (should be VERY cool, since I use Chatterer) as a waveform display. On another CRT, I might create some sweep generators to produce random lissajous patterns. I think it'd be REALLY cool to take a third CRT and loop some Kerbal facial expressions through it. I wonder if Gene Kerman's headset would be visible? It'd be a cool "depiction" of Mission control! It just occurred to me... that ENTIRE SCREEN is the same size as the space between a single whole number division on that ginormous meter!

I got a viewfinder CRT powered up today... There are no bounds to my random parts supplies! Check out this itty bitty screen! I wanna say I have at least two or three of these screens laying around, but I'll have to dig up the other ones. I'm thinking of mimicking the link you shared, and doing game audio (should be VERY cool, since I use Chatterer), and another CRT, I might create some sweep generators to produce random lissajous patterns. I think it'd be REALLY cool to take a third and loop some Kerbal facial expressions through. It just occurred to me... that ENTIRE SCREEN is the same size as the space between a single major division on that ginormous meter!

So canceling doesn't count as failure, just a return of the advance, eh? I've honestly not done that before, and was never clear on the mater... I may go that route then. But there is always save files to return to after screwing around a bit! Did I also mention... It's in an eccentric retrograde orbit that reaches a Pe. of 185,180m and an Ap. of 6,196,857m. We love those eccentric orbits, with their super fast velocities at the periapsis, and an apoapsis that's over half way to Mun! Well, I sent up a vessel that rescued the four Kerbal souls that needed saving. Destroyed the wreckage of the stuff I don't need to save... And saved the torus for later. I attached a small remote probe core to it with a klaw.

Ah, rats nest, my old friend... I am studying wire lacing... As in old school cord lacing... I hope it is a skill I can master, so I can bid adieu to my old nemesis "rat's nest"!

One mustn't forget, the new "Is it safe to open chutes" mechanic as well. Truth be told... I think i value the presence of the part in space more than the mere 13 or so reputation, and few funds that I'd loose for failing the contract. My rep is at least in the 700s, last time I looked. That's a total guess, based on numbers I barely glanced at.

GAH!!! IDEAS!!! I have like, two or three of those CRTs laying around. That is... VERY tempting.

Sweet! I never knew what happened to the kerbal/craft, cause I've never let a contract fail before. Good to know! How does the contract system handle a contract with half the requirement fulfilled and half unfulfilled? Does it take the failure costs, but leave the individual rewards for the parts completed? I'll probably just keep this part in orbit for a station, and take the failure hit... Though I might make a save file and de-orbit the thing just to watch it burn!

I went boating. It goes pretty fast, and doesn't require SAS to remain stable, even at turns. 37 m/s here, and I'd hit 43 m/s... I didn't wanna go faster, since the impact rating of the cabin was 45 m/s It has 4 of the small retractable landing wheels in the corners, so it's amphibious. I launched from the runway, rolled into the ocean, and powered my way to the island landing strip. I did more damage flipping it a few meters from the runway, than anything I did on the water. The bottom is lined with air intakes. It's also LOUD! It sounds like a constant stream of capsule splashdowns. Leaves and AMAZING wake too! =================================================================================================================================================== This is my brain, trying to grasp the epic scale of this... Hail to The Mountain King, baby! So... How many parts? How many STRUTS! My computer gets pretty painful once I hit 1500 parts, but it starts to get laggy over a thousand. Did you tweak your physics settings at all to launch it, or for that matter, what settings do you use? I run a quad 3.5 GHz i7, but only have an AMD Radeon HD 5770.

I wonder what will happen to parts generated by a contract that wants recovery of the vessel too, if I fail to recover the vessel and the contract expires. Anyone know if I'm save to reuse and rename those types of parts?

So, i accepted a contract, which asked me to rescue Calzon Kerman and recover his wreckage. No biggie... Accepted! I saw in the astronaut center, under Calzon Kerman, that he was in the 25m Stanford Torus, from one of my mods... What? WHAT!?! Land a TWENTY FIVE METER STANFORD TORUS!!! Okay, a few things here... What is it? Well, the part is the 25 meter, 250 TON Stanford Torus from the BioDomes part pack (last updated for 0.24). It may or may not (probably may not) have functional attachment nodes in 1.0.x, but since it is basically, just a part, plus an IVA, with no animations, and no active .dll elements, it seems to play nice with the new version without being terribly glitchy. It has no parameters for the new aero, drag, or thermal stuff. I would love to see this part pack updated to 1.0.4, but all work has shifted to the Civilian Population mod... And I'm sorry, I just don't like the parts in that one as much. This has such a lovely IVA, with up to 44 Kerbals sitting at tables and chairs, sipping on koffee mugs, likely filled with top quality Kolumbian brew. A small stream runs around the torus, with a grove of trees enjoying the sunlight of space. Beautiful! Guys... Check out how much ∆v I had left when I got to orbit! I always figured, since it's a part that can hold crew, and can appear in orbit with rescue missions, I can essentially get it "for free" by accepting contracts featuring the part, and using the Klaw to attach station components to it. it's a tradeoff... The satisfaction of actually launching one of these is INCREDIBLE!!! In 0.25, I got two of these into orbit, and in 0.90 I succeeded in LANDING one on Minmus! (I am aware that my Minmus base makes NO sense... Torus is for space, biodomes are sideways, and at that, backwards, if it WERE in space). The Asparagus staging on these was intense... For the orbital stations, i launched on 13 stacks of the big Kerbodyne tanks! The stacks were literally so far apart from one another that I had to use structural girders on the outer stages to "hang" oscar-b tanks in mid air, cause I couldn't get fuel lines to stretch far enough to reach between stacks! Alright, so part and history details aside, the real issue... I don't LIKE to fail contracts, but if I must, I must... I simply do not see landing the 25 meter, 250 TON Stanford Torus from the BioDomes part pack with the new thermal model. It's so ridonkulously heavy, and no heat shield could ever protect it. I am thinking of leaving it in space to build an orbital station with, but my question is, when the contract expires, will IT expire? If I start attaching things to it, and I rename it, will that protect it from oblivion, or do contracts leave wreckage alone if they fail? I don't wanna start some huge orbital station and have it's existence tied to a a contract I can't possibly complete? Likewise... For the heck of it... Is there a way to land 250 tons of OHHELLNO!?! I just really don't see it happening. Oh yeah!!! Did I also mention... It's in an eccentric retrograde orbit that reaches a Pe. of 185,180m and an Ap. of 6,196,857m. We love those eccentric orbits, with their super fast velocities at the periapsis, and an apoapsis that's over half way to Mun!

Yeah, i was thinking about the safe to deploy parachute status, and was thinking about how I have lots of lights on my future DSKY that need to actually do something!